Cultural Restitution and the ‘Rediscovery’ of the Holocaust in Italy, 1989–2003

Abstract

This article illustrates the role played by restitution in bringing about the first substantial changes in the political and public awareness of Italy's anti-Jewish persecutions after the end of the Cold War. More specifically, it analyses how political discourses changed between the years 1989 and 2003 vis-à-vis restitution campaigns on one side and historiographical advances on the other. This proves particularly relevant in the case of post-war Italy, which was exceptional in turning the restitution of national collections into a moment of cathartic rebirth while whitewashing - or all together forgetting - fascism's persecution of its Jewish and colonial subjects. As the article demonstrates, the conflation of international and domestic factors played a crucial role in pushing Italy (as well as several other countries) to start confronting – albeit partially – its antisemitic past. Restitution constituted only a piece of this puzzle, but a crucial one. It afforded the opportunity to document the involvement of many Italians in the persecution of their fellow citizens and to highlight the state's responsibility for the deportations. Furthermore, it provided an international platform for voicing some of the most explicit admissions of accountability, which had until that point found little if any space in the domestic realm. Restitution thereby represented one of the most visible ways for Jewish communities to exercise their newly found political weight to foster the long-awaited recognition of Italy's persecutory behaviour.