Left-Wing Intellectuals and the Representation of the Shoah in Italy. From the Second World War to the 1970s, Between Anti-Fascism and the Frankfurt School.

The previous contributions have examined the discussion of the European Left on antisemitism. This contribution furthers the analyses by looking at the interpretation of the Shoah in the works of left-wing writers from the end of the Second World War until the beginning of the Seventies. The paper is divided into four parts. The first one introduces the main political parties of the Italian left, their political culture, and their relationship with the highly educated classes in the decades taken into consideration. The second one deals with how several influential writers interpreted antisemitism and the Shoah from 1945 to the end of the Fifties, while the third section explores the turn occurred in the following decade. Finally, the fourth part presents some concluding remarks on the contribution of the Frankfurt School and how it crucially influenced the ideas of Italian intellectuals, especially from the second half of the Sixties.