A Complicated Life in Complicated Times: Gino Parin and the Holocaust

The Martin-Springer Institute at Northern Arizona University is bringing a new art exhibition, entitled: A Complicated Life in Complicated Times: Gino Parin and the Holocaust, to the Clara M. Lovett Art Museum in Old Main.

The art show runs from February 28 through April 28, 2023.   A Reception will be held on March 23, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

The Holocaust seems long ago and far away. And yet, fragments of the lives it destroyed and affected can be found even in remote corners of Arizona. How and why did paintings by a Jewish-born artist from the Italian port city of Trieste, who died in a Nazi concentration camp, end up in Cottonwood?

This is what a faculty-student group from NAU, under the mentorship of Björn Krondorfer (Director, Martin-Springer Institute) and Alexandra Carpino (Professor of Art History, Department of Comparative Cultural Studies), investigated. The resulting exhibition, “A Complicated Life in Complicated Times: Gino Parin and the Holocaust,” unpacks the story of an artist with dual Swiss and Italian citizenship who lived in Trieste before and during the rise of Italian fascism. Born Jewish, Parin converted to Catholicism in his early 20s. When Nazi Germany occupied Trieste in 1943, Parin was arrested and deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, where he died.

The Martin-Springer Institute's resource library is located in the Riles Building.

The Martin-Springer Resource Library currently holds almost 600 volumes. The focus of our holdings is on the Holocaust: History, Memoirs, Literature, Testimonies, Education, Law, Ideology, Legacy, Generations, Historiography, Camps, and others.

It also includes resources on Genocide, Antisemitism, Native American history, and educational materials on diversity, historical legacies, racism, tolerance, bullying, and multiculturalism.

You can access a list of resources here. 

The Ambivalence of Italian Antisemitism: Fascism, Nationalism, and Racism in Trieste by Hametz, Maura Elise

Zionism, Emigration, and Antisemitism in Trieste: Central Europe's "Gateway to Zion," 1896-1943 Hametz, Maura, Jewish Social Studies, 13,3 (2007) 103-134

While visiting the Clara M. Lovett Art Museum located in NAU's Old Main, you can ask to see and peruse the following articles:

• Maura Hametz, “Foreigners in Their Own City: Italian Fascism and the Dispersal of Trieste’s Port Jews,”  Jewish Culture and History  vol 9, no 2-3 (2007)
• Tullian Catalan, “The Ambivalence of a Port-City: The Jews of Trieste form the 19^th to the 20^th Century,” Quest: Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, no 2 (October 2011)
• Vivian B. Mann (ed.), Gardens and Ghettos: The Art of Jewish Life in Italy, Berkeley: U of California Press, 1989