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World Jewish News
Large Holocaust Museum to Be Opened in Italy
30.12.2008
In the Corriere della Sera Italian newspaper an article by Aldo Cazzulo was published, which muses1 on the plans to open a museum in Ferrara, dedicated to the history of Judaism and the Holocaust in Italy.
The author of the article interviews a Judaism researcher, historian, Head of the special fund Riccardo Calimani. The idea of creating a museum emerged in 2001, its authors being Alen Elkann and Vittorio Sgarbi. The idea was supported by both major political parties of the country. According to Calimani, there have always been few Jews in Italy, but they played a very important role in Italian history.
"It would be great to start the museum precisely from the Jewish catacombs of Rome: dilapidated, littered, wiped from the common memory." The museum will be situated on the territory of a former Ferrara prison, on the Pyandzhipane Street, and will occupy 13 thousand square kilometers. The entrance to the museum will be free of charge. National music will be playing at all times. "This will be an anti-ghetto," said Calimani. The museum should be open in 2011, on the 150th anniversary of the reunion of Italy, which marked total emancipation of the Jews.
The key role in creating the museum is to be played by research director Piero Stefani: "This will not be an exhibition of items. Even the Nazis in Prague collected silverware for the 'Museum of An Outstanding Nation.' This will be a cultural laboratory. A library, a discussion room. The museum will play pedagogical and educational roles."
Some halls of the museum will be devoted to religious traditions and rituals: birth, circumcision, marriages, funerals. The museum will have an anthropology department, a division of the culinary arts. There will certainly be a section dedicated to the Shoah.
"We will tell the stories of those persecuted in the past," said Calimani, "we will reinstate the stories of 8 thousand Italian Jews who were deported: a relatively small number in the entire Holocaust, but it was a great tragedy for the country."
Responding to reporters' questions about how the question of Pope Pie XII should be treated, the Italian historian said: "The fact that he was silent remains. Nobody can deny this. The rest everyone should discuss with his own conscience."
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