Universit� degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

On the occasion of Holocaust Memorial Day, a commemorative ceremony was held, as every year, in the courtyard of the Unimore Rectorate Building, in the presence of the highest civil and military authorities of the region. The Rector of Unimore, Carlo Adolfo Porro, together with the Mayor of Modena, Massimo Mezzetti, and the Prefect of Modena, Fabrizia Triolo, laid a wreath at the foot of the plaque that remembers the professors who were forced, following the implementation of the racial laws, to leave the then University of Modena.

 

In a few months, in addition to the immediate expulsion of the philosopher of law Benvenuto Donati, the criminal lawyer Marcello Finzi, the pharmacologist Angelina Levi, the chemist Maurizio Leone Padoa, the pathologist Enrico Ravenna, the hygienist Alessandro Seppilli, and the technician Milla Wanda De Maria, the persecution of Jews and individuals with Jewish family ties at the University extended, affecting 14 people who, between 1938 and 1939, suffered this unjust fate.

The list of those affected also included Professor Alessandro Dalla Volta, the free lecturers Ferruccio Ara, Giuseppe Bertel, Emilio Forti, Cesare Tedeschi, and the volunteer assistants Enrico Castelbolognesi and Elio Levi.