The "Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea" Fondation
(C.D.E.C.) is a cultural institute aimed by statute at "ensuring
the documentary collection and promoting the study of the
events, the culture and the reality of the Jews, with special
reference to Italy and to the contemporary age."
C.D.E.C. operates along four different lines: library; historical
archives; department of study and research about contemporary
antisemitism and prejudice; video library.
The Library consists of over 20. 000 books and a vast
collection of periodicals. Main themes: events and problems
of Italian Jewry, deportation and Shoah, Jewish religion
and culture, Sionism and Israel.
The historical archives cover the period 1938-1945: fascist
legislation and persecution; deportation and Shoah; people's
help and assistence to the victims of persecution; Jewish
participation in the "Resistenza"; personal and Community's
events.
The Video-Library, made up quite recently holds over 3.500
videos including films, historical documentaries, inquiries
and witnesses' reports. Entirely at the public's disposal,
every item may be viewed on the premises or hired.
The department of study and research about contemporary
antisemitism and prejudice keeps under close surveillance
both aspects as they occur in everyday's life, analysing
their origin and the tendencies brought about in the circles
housing prejudice. Such particular activity makes the Foundation
a compulsory point of reference, national as well as international,
for anyone who is interested in these matters.
C.D.E.C.'s commitment focuses on preserving the memory of
the Shoah: the issue in 1991 of Liliana Fargion's "Book of
Memory", besides being the result of a twenty-year research
stands out as a Memorial to each and all the Jews deported
from Italy. The commitment goes on with publications, seminars,
lectures in schools, in order to hinder the recurrent waves
of denial and revision.
In relation to this matter the C.D.E.C. Video-Library has
played a prominent role in a joint project involving RAI (Italian
Broadcasting Corp.), the Ministry of Education and the Union
of the Italian Jewish Communities, by producing three videos
to be shown around in 10.000 Italian schools in order to encourage
talks about the Jews, their history and prejudice against
them. Since 1985 C.D.E.C. has been registered as a main Italian
Cultural Institution, thus receiving a permanent contribution
from the Ministry of Culture and Environment. It became a
Foundation in 1990. Its budget is financed by State companies,
national and foreign Jewish communities, single friends and
institutional donors.
The C.D.E.C. Foundation puts its activity and facilities at
the service of the Jewish world and of the entire civilised
community within a free and democratic culture, as an instrument
for the safeguard of the civil rights belonging to every human
being
A recent project of the C.D.E.C ist a CD - ROM about the concentration
camps and killing fields of Auschwitz - Birkenau. This project
will be the first complete visualisation of Auschwitz - Birkenau
worldwide, including animations of the crematoria, the gas
- chambers, maps of the camp comparable with air - photographs
and a vast collection of matches between historical photos
of the various parts of the camp and corresponding photos
taken recently.
