Dr. Tonino Tosto

On November 180, 2008, the 70th anniversary of promulgation by Italy's Fascist Regime of its version of Nazi Germany's Racial Laws, Dr. Tonino Tosto presented his book, 1938 l'Invenzione del Nemico ("1938 The Invention of the Enemy") at the University of Maryland-College Park. The presentation, co-sponsored by College Park's Department of French and Italian and the Jewish Community of Rome, was delivered in Italian; consecutive translation into English was provided by SMATCH.

Dr. Tosto provided highlights from his book, which traces the steps by which Fascists used racial pseudo-science to justify empire building in Africa, then to exclude Jews from the Italian society of which they had been part for 2000 years. Little by little people who had been neighbors and, subsequent to the unification of Italy, fellow citizens of the realm, were demonized and changed into "enemies." Dr. Tosto's presentation both began and ended by relating events his book documents to contemporary European developments, in which some political forces attempt to portray immigrants (from Africa, Asia, Latin America) as outsiders whose presence is inimical to the country's interests.

Dr. Tosto's book includes a Preface written by Dr. Walter Veltroni, who was elected Mayor of Rome and served as leader of Italy's opposition Democratic Party. A SMATCH-prepared English translation follows:

Preface

Walter Veltroni

The history of the 20th Century brought moments of hope and great accomplishments. At the same time it caused mankind to live through unimaginable horrors and unspeakable abominations. However, it would be too convenient to regard these horrors as some sort of nebulous folly or, as some would have it, to rewrite the history of these events in the light of an historical revisionism that tends to make light of or even deny what actually happened.

The path humanity takes leaves precise tracks that we can neither forget nor much less deny. These tracks are seared on the flesh and in the memory of those who were deported, persecuted or exterminated, solely because they professed the Jewish religion or supported a particular political outlook , or simply because they were nomads, disabled or homosexual.

The pages which follow have the great merit of contributing to fixing these tracks for always, as at times books are able to do. They have the merit of nourishing our memory, enabling us better to understand and remember.

To remember what men were capable of doing to other men at a time when, as Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel wrote, “insanity entered history and transformed it into a nightmare.” To remember that, within this “insanity,” real, specific decisions were made and actions were willed and undertaken which sealed the destiny of millions of Jews and thousands of Italian Jews. These actions were carried out by those who consciously chose to discriminate, humiliate, imprison and kill women and men, children and the elderly, because they judged their faith an unacceptable “original sin.”

It was not just Nazism, it was not just Hitler’s Germany that stained themselves with the worst crime ever committed in the history of humanity. The Racial Laws of 1938 thrust Italy full force onto this terrible page of darkness. The descent of Italian Jews into the inferno began then, and this book by Tonino Tosto recreates one by one the steps which led to the abyss: the explicit and inerasable guilt of those who made the decisions and the sad and conformist indifference of the many who, as Irma Staderini writes in her introduction, stained themselves with a “passive anti-Semitism.” Exactly seventy years have passed since the first group of anti-Semitic and racist laws were decreed September 1-2, 1938, laws that, among other things, provided for the expulsion of Jewish students and teachers from the schools. Sixty-five years have passed since the first arrests and deportations by the Nazis and by those who helped them with special diligence and efficiency: the fascist militias of the Republic of Salò.

Much time has passed. The age of ideologies is over -- today we are free to discuss anything. One thing, however, must stay absolutely clear, especially as history itself has undertaken to decide who was right and who was wrong. This was not a case in which there were two opposed yet equally meritorious causes that clashed from September 8, 1943 to April 25, 1945, each in its own way defending the fatherland. Neither was there a “good” fascism until 1938 and one that all of a sudden allowed itself to be subdued by Nazism and for this reason promulgated those Racial Laws which for all time will remain an Italian infamy. No. Fascism was a dictatorship. For more than twenty years a regime took away that which is most precious to a people, its liberty. And no one, today as yesterday, can even think – unless treading outside the tracks of the principles of the republican Constitution – of equating Salò and the Resistance, fascism and antifascism. Only one choice was the right one: the choice of those who fought and gave their lives to restore liberty to Italy, not the choice of those who, having taken it away, continued until the end to collaborate in Nazi atrocities, in the reprisals and deportations, sharing the frightful responsibilities.

With respect to all this there’s a before and there’s an after. But there’s a single truth: the truth of those who chose liberty and democracy when darkness still encircled the world, the truth which history has entrusted us, which is carved in stone, engraved into our memory, and which no one can overturn or cause to disappear.

It is true: today’s contemporary culture all too often is filled with things ephemeral, images and sounds that emphasize only the present and invite us to consume rapidly, without stopping, without thinking. And there also are those who would like to see everything fall into an indistinct oblivion.

But it’s exactly for this reason we must never cease to exhort, above all our youth, not to be indifferent -- because indifference is the foundation upon which every abuse rests, every violation of human rights, every attack on liberty. We must be able to detect and avoid any obfuscation of the rights and wrongs that at times can lead to the confusion of good with evil. And we must remember. For example the testimonies and words gathered here, the emotional and the terrifying, such as those of Alberto Sed.

This is an obligation we have also toward those who endured this experience, toward those who never returned, toward those who found the strength to cling to life so one day they could retell. In this work Tonino Tosto has not shirked a responsibility not to forget and to pass on to new generations an awareness of that which happened. For that matter Tonino Tosto has never lacked civil passion and love for history and, of this, his book is a crowning demonstration.

Dr. Tonino Tosto presents his book, 1938: l'Invenzione del Nemico ("1938: The Invention of the Enemy"), on November 18 at the Language House, St. Mary's Hall, University of Maryland-College Park.

left to right Tonino Tosto Danilo Pace Susy Sergiacomo

Silvia Carlorosi Tonino Tosto James Ehrman