PISA – Racial laws, remembering their signature at San Rossore estate

They presented him with the measure, and he endorsed it without hesitation, scruples or resistance. With this nonchalant act, King Vittorio Emanuele III forever tarnished the name of the House of Savoy. More significantly, he condemned Italian Jewish citizens to persecution, first of their rights and then of their lives. Thus, on September 5, 1938, from the estate of San Rossore in Pisa, Tuscany, the infamy of the racial laws began. They were first signed by the King of Italy at this vacation spot and then announced by Benito Mussolini in a celebratory Piazza Unità in Trieste on the 18th of the same month.
Eighty-six years later, the imperative to remember that signature, that act, and its consequences remains strong. “In this commemoration there is a lesson for our present,” emphasized Andrea Gottfried, who has been president of the Jewish Community of Pisa for less than a year. On Thursday, Gottfried participated, for the first time in this role, in the official events planned for the anniversary, which began at the synagogue on Via Palestro and included stops at various landmarks associated with Jewish persecution in Pisa. On this occasion, he made an appeal “to the responsibility that arises from these events: never yielding to hatred, resentment, intolerance; this is what we must be inspired by in our daily fight against all forms of discrimination.” Starting with antisemitism, “which is becoming almost a popular sentiment,” he noted with disappointment.
Pisa has often been in the news recently, with initiatives where words of hatred and delegitimization towards Israel and, by extension, the Jewish world, have been spoken repeatedly. As the summer break ends, with a return to a “normality” that may soon present new challenges and dangers, Gottfried hopes for “greater impartiality on international issues, with a consequent reduction in harsh rhetoric, because inflammatory language only fuels hatred and intolerance.” In this context, another important anniversary approaches: the October 7 attacks against Israel. The Jewish Community of Pisa, stated its president, “will observe it privately, within community spaces; we will not shout our pain in the square.”

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