Pagina della Memoria: a project about the scientific and cultural impact of the Italian “Racial Laws”. To the memory of Fiorella and Leone Anticoli

Abstract

In January 2022, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV, formerly ING) launched the website “Pagina della Memoria” (The Remembrance Page), https://paginadellamemoria.ingv.it, aimed at collecting and disseminating the documentation about the impact of the antisemitic “Racial Laws” on Italian culture. The “Racial Laws” were anticipated by the “Manifesto degli Scienziati Razzisti” (Manifesto of Racist Scientists) that, against any ethics, stated the biological concept of race. From 16 October 1938, the progressive removal of Jews from Italian universities, research institutions and academies caused irreversible damage to Italian culture, among which the exclusion of women, whose participation was at the forefront.
In 2023, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), the Istituto Nazionale per le Analisi delle Politiche Pubbliche, the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities and the Jewish Community of Rome formally joined the project. The Association of Italian Scholars and Scientists in Israel, the University and the Jewish Museum of Bologna supported the project as well. Within this framework, in January 2024 CNR was the first Italian research institute to pose four Stolpersteine, dedicated to the family of Giacomo Anticoli, expelled from CNR and then deported and killed.
This paper traces the tragic family events of Leone Anticoli, who was expelled and then rehired at ING, a CNR institute at that time. His two-year old daughter Fiorella was deported to Auschwitz and killed. The discovery of Leone’s employee file provided unissued documents that introduced key-elements about the application and the consequences of the “Racial Laws” at ING.