Metadata: Mantua Prefecture. Archive of the Cabinet's Office
Collection
- Country:
- Italy
- Holding institution:
- Mantua State Archive
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archivio di Stato di Mantova
- Postal address:
- via Roberto Ardigò 11, 46100 Mantova
- Phone number:
- +39 376324441
- Web address:
- http://www.asmantova.beniculturali.it
- Email:
- as-mn@beniculturali.it
- Reference number:
- 183, 183 ter, 183 quater, 183 quinquies
- Title:
- Mantua Prefecture. Archive of the Cabinet's Office
- Title (official language):
- Prefettura di Mantova. Archivio dell'ufficio di gabinetto
- Date(s):
- 1943-1969
- Language:
- Italian
- German
- Hebrew
- Extent:
- 300 boxes
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
Despite the loss caused by the destruction of documents by Antonio Orlando in 1943, this fonds contains many important documents for the history of the Jews in Mantua during and after World War II, related especially to anti-Semitic laws and fascist racial persecution.
Folder no. 15 contains several files entitled “Razza ebraica” (Jewish race), concerning Mantua and its province, which include a list of houses owned by Jews, with the names of people living there; a list of the Jews hidden or “irrecoverable” on 26 November 1943; a request by the Militärkommandant in Brescia to obtain quickly a full list with the names of Jews; a copy of the newspaper “Welt-Dienst”, in Italian, about the “Jewish problem” (January 1944); documents of the “Ispettorato Generale per la Razza” (Racial General Inspectorship); requests made to Mantua Prefecture by several Italian firms to obtain a list with the names of the resident Jews, in order to find out whether one or more shares of those firms were owned by Jews; memorandums of the “Ministero dell’Interno” (Home Secretary, May 1944) with practical explanations of the decrees issued by Mussolini in January 1944, about the confiscation of Jewish belongings’; racial controls, including the obligation to verify one’s “Aryan-ness”, especially in case of mixed marriages, baptisms, foreign spouse or Jewish grandparents; a complete census of the Jews, including “discriminated” ones (in a positive sense: “discriminated” from persecution, because of special merits), Jews evacuated from Milan and registers, regularly updated between June 1941 and November 1943 (with indications of marriages, deaths, births, relocations and new additions amongst Jews).
Folder no. 77 includes the number of Mantua civilians (particularly victims of political and racial persecution) who died in the “German camps”, after a request made in July 1952 by the Home Secretary. In folder no. 104 there is a file with statistical data about “non-Catholic cults”, including a survey of the Jewish community in Mantua in 1954: there were 150 Jews and the synagogue, built in 1912, was functioning but there was no rabbi. Folder no. 136 contains a file with requests made by several people for acquiring Italian citizenship, including Bianca Massarani, a Jewish woman who lost it before World War II for marrying a Hungarian subject (her name also occurs in the fonds EGELI). Folder no. 189 contains a file with a circular letter of Home Secretary dated 8 September 1960, with formal recommendation not to use the expression “of Jewish race” or “formerly known as of Jewish race” when referring to people of Jewish origin in official documents, making use of their racial files only to give them the benefits they deserved because of the persecution they suffered (according to the Italian law no. 96, issued on 10 March 1955). Folders no. 220 and 288 contain the documents of three women who in 1961 asked for official recognition of their status as racial persecuted: Clara Coen, Matilde Coen and Anita Duranti. Documents of the election of the president and the councillors of the Mantua Jewish community may be found in folders no. 178 (for the year 1959), no. 255 (for the year 1966), no. 284 (for the year 1968, when a Club of Young Jewish People in Mantua is also present). Folder no. 291 refers to a parliamentary question asked in 1969 by minister Servadei, following a warning made by the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities for the increasing number of anti-Semitic incidents all over Italy; after that, the Prefecture reconstructs the recent case of the violation of the Jewish cemetery in the small town of Viadana, which in the end is labelled as a minor episode caused by some youngsters without any political reasons. Indexes related to this fonds: no. 183, 183 ter, 183 quater, 183 quinquies.
- Archival history:
- This fonds contains acts of the Cabinet Office of Mantua Prefecture, covering a wide spectrum of different issues. It was deposited in Mantua State Archive in four separate tranches after World War II. On 21 December 1943, Antonio Orlando, Chief of the Cabinet Office of Mantua Prefecture, decided to destroy all the acts of the Cabinet Office of Mantua Prefecture prior to the year 1941, claiming these acts were not “necessary” – with the exception of some documents that he did not destroy, including those “of the Jews” (see the declaration made by him and kept in this same fonds, folder no. 1). None of these documents issued before 1941 and allegedly saved from destruction by Orlando have ever been found.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Prefettura di Mantova is a State peripheral administration office dependent on the Ministry of the Interior provided for under the Royal Decree of 9 October 1861, no. 250, in charge of Mantua and the province of Mantua.
The Archive of the Prefettura di Mantova was deposited at the Mantua State Archive in various phases.
This Archives is organised in two series: "Archivio Generale" and "Ufficio di Gabinetto".
See also: http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/istituzioni/schede/8053050/
For historical information about the holding institution, the State Archive of Mantua, see http://guidagenerale.maas.ccr.it/document.aspx?uri=/istituticonservatori/IC0460022101
- Finding aids:
- Guida generale degli Archivi di Stato. Archivio di Stato di Mantova
- Yerusha Network member:
- Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center - Milan
- Author of the description:
- Samuela Marconcini; Centro di documentazione ebraica contemporanea; 2017