NEWS Turin, a plaque to honor Jewish lawyers banned by racial laws

By Pagine Ebraiche staff*

A plaque remembering Jewish lawyers banned by Fascist anti-Jewish laws was unveiled in Turin last week.

“Eighty years after law No 1054 banning Jewish lawyers from practicing law was issued on in 1939, lawyers in Turin paid homage to the memory of 54 colleagues of theirs who were disqualified from the legal profession and disbarred because they were Jewish,” reads the plaque dedicated to the 54 Jewish lawyers who found themselves in this situation.

During the inaugurating ceremony, the Bar Association took responsibility for that dark period, which should become a warning for the future.

In addition, the exhibition “57 left out”, curated by scholar Claudio Vercelli and photographer Alessandro Pession was opened on the same occasion, along with a workshop for lawyers and legal experts on persecutions.

“Let us try and imagine the devastating impact of those 54 disbarment resolutions, notified from the summer 1939 to 54 lawyers in Turin who were only guilty of being Jewish,” said lawyer, UCEI vice-President and workshop moderator Giulio Disegni said in his opening speech.

“Let us imagine the deep dismay, anxiety, bewilderment and frustration which struck those 54 homes and families when bailiffs knocked on their doors and notified their expulsion and disbarment from legal profession as well as the group they had always lived in and identified themselves with,” he added.

Translated by Claudia Azzalini and revised by Mattia Stefani, both students at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of Trieste University and interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities.