New street signs dedicated to persecuted Jews vandalized in Rome

The streets of the Italian capital previously carried the names of scientists who promoted the idea of scientific racism.

By ROSSELLA TERCATIN
Three streets in Rome named after Italian scientists who signed the antisemitic Manifesto della Razza in 1938 have been rededicated to two pioneer Jewish female scholars and an anti-fascist professor on November 21, 2019.. (photo credit: COURTESY OF PAGINE EBRAICHE)
Three streets in Rome named after Italian scientists who signed the antisemitic Manifesto della Razza in 1938 have been rededicated to two pioneer Jewish female scholars and an anti-fascist professor on November 21, 2019..
(photo credit: COURTESY OF PAGINE EBRAICHE)
Less than a week after three streets in Rome named after antisemitic scientists were rededicated to two pioneering Jewish female scholars and an anti-fascist professor, two of the new street signs were vandalized with black paint overnight.
“Disgraceful gesture. Let’s clean up immediately,” Virginia Raggi, the mayor of Rome, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday morning, denouncing the episode.
The streets of the Italian capital previously carried the names of psychiatrist Arturo Donaggi and Edoardo Zavattari, a biologist who promoted the idea of scientific racism. In 1938, both of them signed the antisemitic Manifesto Della Razza (Racial Manifesto), the ideological and pseudo-scientific base for the racial policies of Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime.
The streets in Rome named for Donaggi and Zavattari were renamed for Enrica Calabresi, Nella Mortara and Mario Carrara last Thursday.

Calabresi and Mortara, a zoologist and a physicist respectively, lost their academic positions after Italy passed anti-Jewish legislation similar to Nazi Nuremberg Laws in 1938. Mortara fled to Brazil and was given her position back in 1949, and Calabresi took her life in prison in 1944 to avoid being sent to Auschwitz.
Carrara, a forensic physician, was one of the very few academics who refused to pledge loyalty to the fascist party in 1931. He was arrested in 1936 for promoting anti-fascist activities and died in prison in 1937.
“Those in Rome who have smeared the names of Mario Carrara and Nella Mortara, hiding behind anonymity, carried out a despicable act,” the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Community Noemi Di Segni said in a statement, adding that such an act negatively affects Italian society as a whole, not only its Jewish community.
“We hope that all the residents of the neighborhood and of the whole country make the voice of good heard through civic commitment and commitment to remembrance,” she added.
On Wednesday night, Raggi announced on Facebook that the signs had already been cleaned and restored and that police were still investigating the incident.
“There is no future without remembrance, and we will keep on fighting for it,” she concluded.


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