Les saisons de la mémoire. Les années 1980 et l’émergence de la Shoah dans le discours public italien

This article aims to piece together the context in which a new awareness of the Holocaust arose in Italy. In doing so, it attempts to show that the generally accepted idea that the anti-Semitic persecution discourse was simply substituted for the anti-Fascist discourse is not a sufficient explanation for this phenomenon. In fact, it was in an effort to revive the foundering anti-Fascist discourse that important segments of the political and cultural left adopted an anti-Semitic persecution and anti-racist discourse. This article will demonstrate that Jewish memory neither came to light nor asserted itself in opposition to the anti-Fascist discourse. Rather, Jewish memory emerged in direct relation to this discourse and desperately tried to revive it.