Abstract

This essay focuses on the disavowed histories of Italy’s fascist past with a specific focus on how select historical disavowals reverberate in the present through the law of restricted citizenship, policies governing the lives of migrants, and recent pro-natal campaigns. I take as the occasion for my discussion, the 2017 exhibit at the Museo della Shoah in Rome, entitled “The Enemy Race: Nazi and Italian Fascist Propaganda.” Through representations of the child during Mussolini’s reign, the exhibit represents Mussolini’s investment in the Italian child, conceived of as Catholic, Aryan, and born on Italian soil. His regime aimed to cultivate a future generation that would purify the nation through physical vitality, a belief in racial elitism, and loyalty to the nation state, while casting Jewish and “non-Italian” children as enemy subjects. I argue that the pedagogical impulse of the Museo della Shoah aims, not only to represent life histories that have been imperfectly erased from post-war memory, but also to recognize such a project as an interminable process of reflection that unfolds in a country that continues to suffer under the weight of its disavowed colonial and anti-Semitic history.

摘要

本文着重介绍意大利法西斯主义历史上被拒绝的历史，特别关注通过限制性公民法，管理移民生活的政策以及最近的生育运动如何在历史上回荡当前精选的历史性拒绝。我借此机会讨论在Shola博物馆举办的2017年展览在罗马，题目是“敌人的种族：纳粹和意大利法西斯宣传。” 通过在墨索里尼统治时期对孩子的描绘，展览展示了墨索里尼对意大利孩子的投资，该孩子被认为是天主教徒，雅利安人，出生于意大利。他的政权旨在培养下一代，他们将通过身体活力，对种族精英的信仰和对民族国家的忠诚来净化民族，同时将犹太和“非意大利”儿童作为敌对主体。我认为，德拉肖阿博物馆（Museo della Shoah）的教学冲动 目的不仅是代表战后记忆中被不完全抹掉的生活史，而且旨在将这样的计划视为一个不断思考的过程，并在这个国家中不断发展，而这个国家在遭受殖民主义和反殖民主义压制的沉重打击下继续遭受苦难-犹太历史。