ABSTRACT This article explores the early development of foundational groundwork that led to the establishment of the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center (CDEC) from 1952, when the project first emerged, to its first Statute in 1957, via its official foundation on 25 April 1955. It examines its symbolic and structural foundations, its guiding models, and the strategic choices that enabled a youth-led initiative to overcome significant challenges within the postwar and early Cold War context. The analysis situates the CDEC within the milieu of its founders, a group of young members of the Italian Jewish Youth Federation, providing insight into the challenges and debates at the heart of postwar Jewish reconciliation in Italy. It also explores the generational tensions experienced by those who had grown up under Fascism and sought a renewed civic and political identity through postwar engagement. Furthermore, it draws a close connection between the Centers foundations and the efforts to document and interpret the memory of the persecution affecting groups targeted by Fascism and Nazism, particularly that of the Istituto per la storia del movimento di liberazione in Italia (Institute for the History off the Liberation Movement in Italy). Finally, the CDEC’s documentary mission is contextualized within a transnational framework of Jewish historical commissions and documentation centers across Europe, the United States, and Israel, setting the standards to preserve, analyze, and disseminate the memory and history of the Shoah.
issue 28 / n.2 (2025)
