The head of the Union of Italian
Jewish Communities (UCEI), Noemi Di Segni, on Wednesday wrote to
Culture Minister Dario Franceschini asking that the name of the
king who signed Mussolini's racial laws in 1938, Vittorio
Emanuele III, be removed from schools and public libraries
across Italy.
Di Segni said that, as well as countersigning the infamous
laws, the king - whose body has just returned to Italy - had
been "the accomplice of numerous crimes committed in Fascism's
20-year reign".
The UCEI chief said "we have learned with dismay" that
countless schools and libraries were still "dedicated by the
Italians to the king who abandoned them to their fate",
referring to Vittorio Emanuele's inglorious flight from Italy
after agreeing an armistice with the Allies, without giving
instructions on who soldiers and civilians should side with.
These institutions include, the UCEI president said, the
National Library in Naples, the third most important Italian
library.
UCEI will on January 18 stage a play at Rome's Parco della
Musica called The Trial focusing on Vittorio Emanuele's misdeeds
and shortcomings.
It will be chance to reflect on "the individual and
collective responsibilities for that infamy," Di Segni said.
She also voiced "strong" concern over "the growing
legitimization of Fascism in the media and entertainment
worlds".
One dismaying example, she said, was the conservative Rome
newspaper Il tempo recently devoting its front page to
'Mussolini, Man of the Year'.
The Savoy family last month asked on the return of the bodies
of Vittorio Emanuele III and his wife that they be buried in the
Pantheon, burial place of other Italian kings, but the
government refused amid widespread opposition to the idea.
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