ROME – Antisemitic propaganda,
an exhibition reveals how hate has been codified

Hosted by the Shoah Museum Foundation in Rome and organized by the historian Marcello Pezzetti, the exhibition “The Enemy Race” compares the Nazi antisemitic propaganda with the Fascist one. The exhibition is built around stereotypes and distorted interpretations of historical and political facts, which aim to show Jews as a “dangerous enemy that must be fought and eventually exterminated.” Already displayed in 2017, the exhibition now reopens at Casina dei Vallati, in a period in which hate speech has a massive impact on the society. “It happens nowadays that Jewish journalists or writers don’t have the right to express themselves,” denounced Mario Venezia, president of the Shoah Museum Foundation, also highlighting that the situation is alarming in places intended for education, such as universities and schools.
“We are aware that words are stones and they can become bullets. We also know that there are instigators and executors,” Antonella Di Castro, vice-president of the Jewish Community of Rome previously said when talking about the “so-called peace demonstrations” that were marked by “extreme and unnecessary violence,” with professors “justifiying” the situation. Pezzetti, Milena Santerini, vice-president of the Shoah Memorial of Milan and the journalist Francesca Nocerino, participated in the interview moderated by Claudia Conte, journalist and human rights activist.
“This exhibition is so important because it works on imagery, and today we are constantly surrounded by visual representations that sometimes have more power than words,” explained Santerini, before starting a reflection on today’s antisemitic propaganda between “dehumanization and conspiracy.” New and old elements blend. In the exhibition, Pezzetti mentions that Fascism was the first regime in Western Europe to “use propaganda as a fundamental means of communication to influence and shape public opinion”. Even before becoming a dictatorship, Fascism had been able to use press “in an extremely powerful way”, both on a national level, in the official political newspaper Il Popolo D’Italia (The People of Italy) and on a local level. Over time, censorship laws came into force and the propaganda system became “increasingly centralised and efficient”. In fall 1938, with the enactment of the racist laws, Jews became the first victims of this “efficiency”.

Translated by Francesca Roversi and revised by Cecilia Seneci, students at the Secondary School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, trainees at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.