The Archival Series Concerning the Confiscation of Jewish Property Found in the Archives of the Prefecture of Venice
10.6092/issn.2532-8816/9037
Introduzione ai lavori del Workshop "Data Sharing, Holocaust Documentation and the Digital Humanities: Best Practices, Case Studies and Benefits."
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2532-8816
9037
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Raffaele Santoro
Umanistica Digitale
The Archival Series Concerning the Confiscation of Jewish Property Found in the Archives of the Prefecture of Venice
Text.Serial.Journal
https://umanisticadigitale.unibo.it/
Articles
2019-03-01
2019-02-04
2019-03-01
2019-12-18
Um. Dig.
Raffaele Santoro
2019/03/01
10.6092/issn.2532-8816/9037
Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Venezia, Italy
2532-8816
4
en
The Archival Series Concerning the Confiscation of Jewish Property Found in the Archives of the Prefecture of Venice
https://umanisticadigitale.unibo.it/article/view/9037/8936
     Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.4, 2019
V. Vanden Daelen – Data Sharing, Holocaust Documentation and the Digital Humanities:
Introducing the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI)
DOI: http://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2532-8816/9036


  The Archival Series Concerning the Confiscation of
Jewish Property Found in the Archives of the Prefecture
                       of Venice

                                         Raffaele Santoro

                                    Archivio di Stato di Venezia
                                   as-ve@beniculturali.it


       Introduction

I am honored to open this International Workshop, organized by the CDEC Foundation in
collaboration with the Master in Digital Humanities program - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia.
Today, in 2017, all of the Italian State Archives are able to make available their documents
regarding the Second World War to scholars of the period, because more than seventy years
have passed since those events. On this subject, the archives of the Prefectures and Police are
especially rich.
In Italy, the anti-Jewish Laws were passed in 1938. But it was only from 1943 that the Italians
themselves began to participate in genocide, with the creation of concentration camps in Italy,
from which the Jews were deported to Auschwitz.
I will speak briefly about the series that concerns the confiscation of Jewish property, found in
the Prefecture, while Dr. Andrea Pelizza will speak about the other archival series that the State
Archives of Venice has brought to the attention of researchers.
The Fascist Italian Social Republic (already called, as a sign of contempt, "Republic of Salò")
instituted its anti-Jewish measures, without making any distinction or consideration of the
merits of certain people who were part of the Jewish community. Thus they moved first to
strike at Jewish property, by taking it for the Italian nation.
The legislative decree of January 4, 1944, number 2, established new policies concerning
property owned by Italian citizens who were of the Jewish "Race". The process of confiscation
was brutal, whether real estate, furniture, and businesses. Orders were given to the Prefects, the
heads of the Provinces, to issue their own decrees to organize the seizures, by making use of the
lists of Jews in each territory which had been compiled in 1938.
After the Racial Laws of 1938, Jews were excluded from civil life, but at that point part of them
had not yet suffered the confiscation of their property: certain categories of Jewish citizens were
exempted from the harshest measures. The so-called "discriminati", that is, those persons who

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could demonstrate having made contributions to the Fatherland, and Jews who were married to
someone of the "Arian race", were not initially affected by that measure. By January of 1944,
however, the persecution grew harsher, more ferocious; no one was exempt and all Jews were
deprived of their possessions, furniture, property and money. The goods confiscated fell under
the administration of the Office of Property Administration and Liquidation (EGELI), which
was charged by the State to administer and sell them according to the norms established by the
Ministry of Finance. For the administration of the EGELI moveable goods, the participation of
local banks was necessary. In the case of Venice, the bank involved was the Istituto di Credito
Fondiario delle Venezie, located in Verona. The Prefect’s decree contained the name of the
owners of the goods, bureaucratically de- fined as companies; the lists of all of the good
possessed; and the places where these goods were situated. The decrees concerned Venice and
its province. The documents also contain the timeline of the seizures. The employees of the
Prefect enter the homes, which are often empty because the inhabitants were warned to avoid
being caught. Nonetheless there is some resistance, especially on the part of the elderly, who
saw their entire lives diminished. In June of 1945, with the defeat of Nazism and Fascism, the
goods were returned to their legitimate owners, with a new decree from the new Prefecture.
The State Archives of Venice has created a census of all of the existing decrees, in the archival
series of the Prefecture, titled "Beni ebraici", or "Jewish Property". We have identified 206
decrees regarding immovable property of 206 families, 685 decrees regarding moveable goods
with their financial worth, and 34 decrees regarding businesses. We can look one of those
decrees: The Prefecture of Venice Decree Article1
Regarding the confiscation by the State of the goods listed below which belong to Jewish firm
of Dr. Ravà Mario di Max, owner, and Ravà Massimiliano Giorgio fu Graziano, partial
usufructury, sentenced to the sequester by the Prefect’s decree n. 396 on January 13th 1944;
Venezia Cannaregio, Calle della Ca’ d’Oro 3934 civico al 3937-3938 sub. 2; House with four
floors and 54 rooms, San Felice folio 12 mapped 2504 with a value of 30.600 lire.
The material confiscated includes furniture, works of art, decorations, furnishings, and any
other types of moveable objects currently in said home and in the possession of the two above-
named citizens of Jewish race.
Article2 The transfer for the administration and subsequent profit from the goods indicated in
the preceding article to the Institute of Administration and Liquidation of Properties
(E.G.E.L.I.), located in San Pellegrino Terme (Bergamo), entrusted by the State with the task of
administrating and selling these properties, in accordance with the norms that will be
established by the Ministry of Finance.
The State Archives of Venice created a data base of the series "Beni ebraici" and this database
will be available on the website of the Archive.




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