“remembrance day of suspended lives”: on monday January 27, SANT’ANNA school commemorates thousands of italian and foreign jewish students, academics and staff banned from school and universities in 1938

On the Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27, a virtual reality exhibition will commemorate Italian and foreign Jewish students, academics and staff banned from schools and universities in 1938, for witnessing and recording the Holocaust and to encourage critical thinking on racism and hatred today. On Monday, January 27, from 4.00 to 7.00 pm, visitors to the virtual Holocaust exhibition will enter an immersive multimedia experience where historical settings and events are reconstructed to explore the experience of the victims of deportations and forced migration.

Camilla Tanca,  Gianni Lucchesi, Chiara Evangelista, and Ursula Ferrara are the curators of the exhibition. The first exhibition opening in2018 at the Sant’Anna church reflected the idea of remembrance and passing memory from generation to generation.

The collective memory of the “Suspended Lives” of students and academics emerge as a deep concern for Jewish spiritual survival. Sant’Anna School Professors Barbara Henry, Michele Emdin, Massimo Bergamasco, Sant’Anna School students and visitors will explore the space and the context of the images in a private and personal way. Looking at the photos and testimonies of victims can contribute to understand Anti-Semitism, racism and prejudice. The exhibition includes photos and visual testimony of antisemitism, death camps and inhumane conditions sanctioned by Italian and European states ideology. It is a creative use of technology to reconsider the past until the end of the Nazi occupation and the Liberation of Europe in 1945.

The “Remebrance Day of Suspended Lives” initiative is supported by Comune di Pisa, Prefettura di Pisa, Questura di Pisa, Provincia di Pisa, Università di Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Ufficio scolastico regionale, Comunità Ebraica di Pisa, Cise (Centro interdipartimentale di studi ebraici), Anpi sezione di Pisa, Cineclub Arsenale, and  Coop Culture.

Initiatives to commemorate the Holocaust Memorial Day take place from January  20 to January 30.

Photo gallery: a poster of the “Remebrance Day of Suspended Lives” initiative, taking place in Pisa on the Holocaust Memorial Day