AGENDA EBRAICA PER L'ANNO 5703 / 1942-1943 (XX-XXI)

Turin: Tipografia del Commercio, 1942. First edition. Very good plus.. Calendar of the Jewish year 5703 (1942-43), issued by the Synagogue of Turin for the period in which that synagogue would be destroyed by Allied bombardment. Constructed in 1884 after lengthy disputations with architect Alessandro Antonelli until his replacement by Enrico Petiti, the Synagogue of Turin was partially destroyed by bombardment amidst the Allied attack on Italy in November, 1942; rebuilding and restoration was not completed until the latter half of the 1940s, after the war's end. This ephemeral AGENDA, printed at the direction of the Turin synagogue and including its hours, would have been issued several months before the bombing. Judging from marks of internal use, its owner continued to use the agenda through 1943 - the year Mussolini was first deposed, then reinstated by invading German forces. Prior to this, Italy had been a place of relative physical safety for Jews (though most rights had been stripped by the fascists in 1938). But beginning in that year, as Nazi forces occupied the country, German officials began deportations; nearly one-in-five Italian Jews ultimately perished in the Holocaust. An evocative and moving survival. 4.5'' x 3.5''. Original printed wrappers. 48 pages. Light foxing to covers recto and verso; pencil to rear cover and to final "Note" page. Interior pages lightly toned; a few calendar notes in pen throughout from previous owner.