A tribute to Italian physiologists of Jewish descent evicted during the persecution ordered by the Fascist Regime in 1938

Abstract

The present report commemorates the persecution of five renowned Italian physiologists of Jewish descent that lost their chairs in medical schools because of the anti-semitic policies of the fascist regime. In 1938, Mussolini promulgated the Racial Laws, officially with the aim of safeguarding the purity of the Italian race in conquered African colonies. However, their true intent was to persecute the Italian Jewish community in agreement with the policy of Nazi Germany. In accordance with the Racial Laws, all non-Aryans were banished from professional activities and were evicted from public, social, and academic life. As a result, 98 full professors in Italian universities were removed from their academic positions. In medical schools, physiology, more than other discipline, lost the most prominent faculty members. Of the 17 full Professors of Human Physiology, five were of Jewish descent, and all were evicted: they were Camillo Artom from Palermo, Mario Camis from Bologna, Carlo Foà from Milan, Amedeo Herlitzka from Turin, and Ugo Lombroso from Genoa. All were talented and famous scientists who were forced to leave Italy and take refuge in foreign countries. At the end of World War II, Camis, Foà, Herlitzka, and Lombroso returned to Italy and resumed their previous academic positions, whereas Artom remained in the United States. Unfortunately, Camis died later that year. During the postwar period, some of the fascists responsible for the Jewish persecution were killed or committed suicide while the survivors were imprisoned and prosecuted. However, all were soon released and resumed their former positions.

Developing Science at the Risk of Oblivion: The Case of Filippo Bottazzi

“…Bottazzi has been often criticized as directly linked to the so-called ‘medicina politica’ (political medicine) favoured by the Italian Fascist regime. In other words, today he is commonly charged with supporting the predominantly racist culture of his time (if not with being a sycophant to the ‘superior genius of the Italian race’): indeed, he figures among the signatories of the criminal Manifesto degli scienziati razzisti 19 best known as the Manifest of the Race (1938) 20 . This circumstance, however, can be explained from the fact that the post-Second World War climate is largely insensitive to the fundamental distinction between ‘nationalism’ (an ideal orientation widespread in all European cultures before the Second World War) and its many faceted declinations in the Italian fascist Regime.…”