Every year, on the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Forum on the Problems of Peace and War in Florence organizes a series of lectures in high schools in Tuscany to commemorate the genocide of around six million European Jews during the Second World War. This year, on January 27, Simone Paoli (Professor of History and Political Science at ISI Florence) gave a lecture on Italian Fascism and the Holocaust to one hundred and fifty high school students at the Francesco Cicognini National Boarding School in Prato. In the presence of regional and local authorities, he explained the complex relationship between the Fascist regime and the Jewish community in Italy and discussed the contribution of the Italian Social Republic to the deportation and murder of thousands of Italian Jews between 1943 and 1945.

Simone Paoli, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science at ISI Florence