On the 7th of December 2022 a seminar on how the Italian diplomacy faced the promulgation of the 1938 racial laws in Italy was held at the Department of Political Sciences of the Sapienza University of Rome.
The seminar was jointly organised by Consorzio Sapienza Innovazione and the Department of Political Sciences (chair of Contemporary History and chair of History of International Relations), in the framework of the History of International Relations class held by Professor Luca Micheletta. The students attending the seminar entitled "La diplomazia italiana di fronte alla legislazione antiebraica: un racconto tra archivi e memoria" had the opportunity to look at this dramatic historical period through the historical reconstructions given by Federica Onelli, State Archivist at the Historical Diplomatic Archive of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Thanks to the records of the Historical Diplomatic Archive, Federica Onelli provided a lot of insights on how Italian diplomats faced racial discriminations. Analysing official records and private memoirs two different cases were presented: the life of Paolo Vita-Finzi, and that one of Luca Pietromarchi. Both of them were diplomats, but they experienced the impact of the Italian Fascist anti-Jewish legislation differently. Paolo Vita-Finzi (1899-1986) started the diplomatic career in 1924, working in consular offices. Because of his Jewish ancestry after the promulgation of the racial laws in Italy in 1938 he had to leave the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Italy, and took shelter in Argentina. He was eventually reintegrated as an officer of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1945, after the fall of the Fascist regime. Luca Pietromarchi (1895-1978) was also an Italian diplomat. During the Axis occupation of the Balkans Pietromarchi served as Superintend of the Italian-occupied territories, where many Jews coming from the German-occupied territories had sough refuge. From his position, Pietromarchi had a crucial role in preventing the deportation of these Jews. In fact, thanks to his role he was one of the Italian diplomats who through the means of written reports for Mussolini tried to discourage the Italian Fascist dictator from handing over the Jews of the territories under Italian control to the Nazis. The students were very interested in the possibility of reading about such an important topic from original handwritten documents and hold a debate on the importance of memory and its dissemination.
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