Enrica: the story of a woman that history can’t forget

The story of Enrica Calabrese doesn’t begin here in Tuscany, but rather in Ferrara, like Bassani’s famous novel ‘The garden of the Finzi Contini’. Her story ends tragically in January 1944 in the Santa Verdiana prison in Florence. When she was very young, Enrica moved to Florence to study the natural sciences. It was here that she met and fell head over heels in love with Giovanni who sadly died on the peak of the Alps in 1916. Enrica took his death very hard and she quickly made the decision to become a Red Cross volunteer. She was soon sent to the front where she experienced the full horrors of war. When she came back to Florence, she spent a great deal of time at the university and the Specola laboratory, until 1933 when she became a teacher. She was never a member of the fascist party and was probably exasperated by the new political regime. She taught in several school in Florence and Pisa, such as the Liceo Galileo in Florence where she taught the future astrophysicist, Margherita Hack.

This illustrious ex-pupil vividly remembers Enrica as being an excellent teacher, despite being rather shy and reserved. Enrica was pushed out of the school where she was teaching in 1938 thanks to the racial laws. As she herself pointed out, she didn’t get any kind of support from her colleagues or superiors. She still had a passion for teaching though and went on to work at Jewish school in Via Farina, alongside several other teachers who had been sacked from Florentine schools. Unfortunately for Enrica, the worst was yet to come for the Jewish community in Florence. She went on living in her flat on Via del Proconsolo, as shy and reserved as always, until January 1944 when the authorities came and arrested her. She was taken to Santa Verdiana Prison and it was here that she decided to take her own life, rather than risk the terrible fate of being transported to a concentration camp – as had already happened to so many Florentine Jews.