Trajectories of Jewish-Gentile Interactions after the Second World War and the Memory of Persecutions in Florence

How is it possible get back to “normal” after the war for the small Florentine Jewish community that lived persecution since 1938 and arrests and deportations since 1943? How can Jews return to live together again with those who have denounced their loved ones? Although individual Italians helped many persecuted Jews, scholars have, in contrast to earlier narratives, in recent years highlighted the role of Italian perpetrators who were in considerable numbers responsible for the arrest and the deportation of Jews in collaboration with the German occupiers.

In my presentation I intend to examine the relationships between Jews and non-Jews in Florence in the postwar period. I will take into consideration relations between Jews and Gentile with a long-term approach, from the early 1930s to the late 1950s. Applying a micro-historical approach allows us to follow some significant trajectories of these Jewish-gentile interactions, their evolutions and transformations during the war and the persecutions. These stories are useful to better analyse the framework of various activities promoted by the Jewish community in the town for searching justice, that is asking for the against the collaborators with occupiers to be held, but also for attempting to forget the traumatic past.