Emotions Out of Pages: Si può stampare by Silvia Forti Lombroso

Silvia Forti Lombroso (Verona, 1889 – Cambridge, MA, 1979) was an Italian Jewish woman living in Italy during the Fascist regime and the Nazi occupation. Between October 1938 and March 1945, she wrote a diary, Si può stampare, published by Dalmatia in 100 copies in June 1945. In November of the same...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mara Josi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Fondazione Nuto Revelli 2021-12-01
Series:Close Encounters in War Journal
Subjects:
Online Access:https://closeencountersinwarhome.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/josi-emotions-out-of-pages.pdf
Description
Summary:Silvia Forti Lombroso (Verona, 1889 – Cambridge, MA, 1979) was an Italian Jewish woman living in Italy during the Fascist regime and the Nazi occupation. Between October 1938 and March 1945, she wrote a diary, Si può stampare, published by Dalmatia in 100 copies in June 1945. In November of the same year, the American publishing house Roy Editors translated and published it with the title No Time for Silence, making it one of the first Italian documents of the Jewish persecution to appear in English. And yet, this text has been forgotten. Si può stampare is a diaristic chronicle of discrimination, persecution, and life in hiding. During the years of persecution, Jews were deprived of most of their belongings. The few objects that they managed to keep were, therefore, re-semanticised. Forti Lombroso perceived her diary as the only bearer of her memories and of her emotions, as the embodiment of her real self, and as the only means for its preservation when she was forced into hiding. This text is a testimonial object of and against the war. With publication, it became a physical mark of regained freedom. This article analyses the diary as an introspective prism displaying Forti Lombroso’s psychological, moral, and physical changes before and during the war. At the same time, it rereads her words and her experience as representative of a generation of women who were silenced, segregated, and persecuted thus reflecting on the emotional impact of discrimination and persecution on Jewish women.
ISSN:2704-8799