Sergio DeBenedetti memoirs

Identifier
irn514443
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2004.57
Dates
1 Jan 1941 - 31 Dec 1941
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • Italian
  • English
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

folders

2

Creator(s)

Biographical History

Sergio DeBenedetti was born in Florence, Italy and obtained his PhD in physics at the University of Florence in 1933. During the Fascist era, he worked on cosmic ray physics and received a three-year fellowship to the Curie Laboratory in Paris. He was forced to cut his stay in France short when Italy invaded Abyssinia, but returned to France when, as a Jew, the Italian Race Laws exempted him from military service. He remained in Paris until the day before the Nazis entered the city in 1940, reaching the United States by way of Lisbon.

Archival History

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Acquisition

Vera DeBenedetti Bonnet donated her father's memoir to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on Dec. 5, 2003.

Scope and Content

Consists of one unedited memoir, in Italian, entitled "Note Antifasciste," by Sergio DeBenedetti (approximately 520 pages) 1941, and the edited version of "Note Antifasciste," retitled "Between Fascism and Freedom: The Education of Sergio DeBenedetti," edited by Vera DeBenedetti Bonnet, in English, (approximately 100 pages), 2003. In this memoir, Sergio DeBenedetti recounts his experiences as a Jewish physicist in Mussolini's Italy and his experiences working in Paris in the months immediately preceeding the Nazi invasion in 1940.

Subjects

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.