NAZI OCCUPATION IN RITA LEVI-MONTALCINI ‘S LETTERS
When fascist regime issued the "Manifesto In Defence of Race” in 1938, Rita Levi-Montalcini was 29 years old and, recently graduated in medicine, was dealing with scientific research at the University of Turin. Racial laws blocked professional careers of non-Aryan citizens, so Rita Levi-Montalcini had to find other ways to continue her precious activity, along a road studded with dangers and difficulties.
Memory of those years had always been in the mind of the scientist. Traces of that past also appear in a 1986 letter addressed to Guido Bonnet (father of the current owner of the collection and an old friend of Levi-Montalcini) that will be sold at the auction of rare books and autographs on the 12th and the 13th of July, held in Turin by Aste Bolaffi. Writing about her experience at the Nobel Prize ceremony, Rita Levi-Montalcini recalled with emotion "the smallest of the mistakes made in those years". And she added with commotion: "Looking back it seems to me a miracle that, instead of having been ended up in Auschwitz, I have been celebrated in Stockholm".
This important paper refers to the period when Rita Levi-Montalcini returned to Italy from Belgium, a country where she had fled to continue her activity but which in the meantime had been invaded by the Nazis. On her return, she set up a laboratory in her bedroom to continue her research but, following the bombings on Turin, she had to flee with her family to the hills of Asti and then to other cities, where she was forced to change hiding place several times to avoid deportation.
In a later correspondence with Guido Bonnet, which we can see in the 12th and 13th July auction, the scientist showed a sincere appreciation for the activity of a friend during Nazi occupation. About an autobiography she was preparing for the magazine of an American foundation, she wrote: "I would like to mention, in my turn, your mockery to the S.S. when they surprised you in your small office assigned to this work". She was referring to the forged papers business that helped save many lives.
Hard experience of the war and Italian laws proclaimed the fascist regime come up clearly from these letters, auctioned by Aste Bolaffi on the 12th and the 13th of July, together with one of the most valuable lots: the autograph note addressed to Susetta Bonnet Giordano certifying the dating of the portrait that her sister Paola made to Rita Levi-Montalcini while they were hidden in Florence to escape the Holocaust.
All the lots on auction on the 12th and the 13th of July can be viewed on appointment from Monday the 19th of June to Tuesday the 4th of July 2023, by calling at 011 0199101 or writing to info@astebolaffi.it. Otherwise, free access to Spazio Bolaffi will be from Friday the 7th to Wednesday the 12th of July 2023 (Saturday and Sunday excluded), from 10 am to 18.
LOTS ON AUCTION
Memory of those years had always been in the mind of the scientist. Traces of that past also appear in a 1986 letter addressed to Guido Bonnet (father of the current owner of the collection and an old friend of Levi-Montalcini) that will be sold at the auction of rare books and autographs on the 12th and the 13th of July, held in Turin by Aste Bolaffi. Writing about her experience at the Nobel Prize ceremony, Rita Levi-Montalcini recalled with emotion "the smallest of the mistakes made in those years". And she added with commotion: "Looking back it seems to me a miracle that, instead of having been ended up in Auschwitz, I have been celebrated in Stockholm".
This important paper refers to the period when Rita Levi-Montalcini returned to Italy from Belgium, a country where she had fled to continue her activity but which in the meantime had been invaded by the Nazis. On her return, she set up a laboratory in her bedroom to continue her research but, following the bombings on Turin, she had to flee with her family to the hills of Asti and then to other cities, where she was forced to change hiding place several times to avoid deportation.
In a later correspondence with Guido Bonnet, which we can see in the 12th and 13th July auction, the scientist showed a sincere appreciation for the activity of a friend during Nazi occupation. About an autobiography she was preparing for the magazine of an American foundation, she wrote: "I would like to mention, in my turn, your mockery to the S.S. when they surprised you in your small office assigned to this work". She was referring to the forged papers business that helped save many lives.
Hard experience of the war and Italian laws proclaimed the fascist regime come up clearly from these letters, auctioned by Aste Bolaffi on the 12th and the 13th of July, together with one of the most valuable lots: the autograph note addressed to Susetta Bonnet Giordano certifying the dating of the portrait that her sister Paola made to Rita Levi-Montalcini while they were hidden in Florence to escape the Holocaust.
All the lots on auction on the 12th and the 13th of July can be viewed on appointment from Monday the 19th of June to Tuesday the 4th of July 2023, by calling at 011 0199101 or writing to info@astebolaffi.it. Otherwise, free access to Spazio Bolaffi will be from Friday the 7th to Wednesday the 12th of July 2023 (Saturday and Sunday excluded), from 10 am to 18.
LOTS ON AUCTION