At the Capitoline Museums an exhibition on the rounding up of Jews from Rome on the 80th anniversary

From October 16, 2023, to February 18, 2024, the Capitoline Museums in the Palazzo dei Conservatori is hosting the exhibition The Drowned. Rome, October 16, 1943, on the occasion of the80th anniversary of the October 16, 1943 roundup when more than a thousand Jews in Rome were taken from their homes by the Nazis and deported to the Auschwitz Birkenau camp. The exhibition, curated by Yael Calò and Lia Toaff and promoted by Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Cultura, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, Comunità Ebraica di Roma and Fondazione per il Museo Ebraico di Roma, aims to retrace the events of those hours and honor the memory of those who never returned. The exhibition is part of the commemorative program for the 80th anniversary of the October 16, 1943 rounding up of the Jews from Rome, carried out with the contribution of the Ministry of the Interior. It is organized by Zètema Progetto Cultura.

The intent of the exhibition was to devise an itinerary with a strong emotional impact, to immerse the visitor in the dimension of anguish, bewilderment and violence that the arrested Jews suffered and, through the reality and power of this re-enactment, to offer an opportunity to reflect together, as a community, on the causes and consequences of that horror.

At the center of the exhibition narrative are the protagonists of the deportation, namely the women, men and the many, many children who were literally submerged by that tragic day and to whom it is intended to restore an identity and recognition precisely through remembrance. Individual stories and personal chronicles are recreated through a precious selection of materials preserved at the Historical Archives of the Jewish Community of Rome, the Central State Archives, the State Archives of Rome, the Museum of Rome, the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center of Milan (CDEC), National Library of Italian Judaism “Tullia Zevi” - Historical Archives of the Union of Italian Israelites of Italy, the Archives of the Jewish Schools of Rome, the Gramsci Institute of Rome, lending families, the Archives of the Vatican Museums, the Barracco Museum and the Jewish Museum of Rome.

On display are paintings and drawings, photographs, documents, newspapers and deeds, especially identity documents, trench recollections from World War I, newspaper articles, phonograms from the Questura, lists of deportees, lists of the homes of Jewish families that ended up in the hands of the Nazi hierarchs, and messages written by people arrested by the most fortuitous means. The many objects of daily life present, including dishes, clothes, rings, watches, family photos, school report cards, are meant to bring out the broken lives of these people.

The exhibition aims to propose a journey through history that spans the entire city of Rome, not just the former Ghetto. In fact, the Nazis divided the capital into zones in order to make arrests in all of Rome’s neighborhoods, which are evoked through the stories of individuals. While placing the feelings and individual stories of October 16, 1943 at the center of the narrative, the exhibition is not intended to be confined to those hours. The drama of the October 16 roundup was in fact not a single episode, but the final outcome of a series of abuses and violence against the Jews of Rome. A course that began with the racial laws of November 1938, intensified by the terrible blackmail of the 50 kilos of gold, and ended in total violence with the deportations.

Pictured: Pio Pullini, Scene of roundup (1944; watercolor; Rome, Museum of Rome)

At the Capitoline Museums an exhibition on the rounding up of Jews from Rome on the 80th anniversary

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