Analyzing documents (02)
I sometimes hear IUP students say that dealing with documents from the modern era is easy. Of course reading a modern printed book does not require the same skills as reading a manuscript, especially if one is dealing with, say, medieval Latin script in which the writer developed his or her own method of abbreviating words. Indeed, the invention and broad use of the typewriter and the standardization of print fonts have made the modern printed word easier to decipher. However, if you find yourself working with fading and torn or poorly microfilmed newspapers (which is usually the case, at least in Italy), it can take hours to decipher a text, and you are often left with gaps in the text owing to indecipherable passages. (You also harm your sight pouring over microfilms, as I can personally testify.) The introduction and mass use of carbon paper in government offices, a phenomenon that started in Europe during World War I, presents another problem. The onion paper, often used for making copies, tears easily and frays along the edges, increasing the chances that text can be made illegible or become obliterated. The ink and paper used in the carbon-paper process are of a poor quality, resulting in letters continue bleed into the paper and fade as the years pass rendering copies very difficult if not impossible to read.
Another important consideration is that not all sources in the modern era were typed. Handwriting was still an important means of communication, and you may find yourself working primarily with handwritten notes, letters and diaries. These can be very difficult to decipher as the following letter sent from Alberto De Stefani to Federzoni on 8 October 1939 demonstrates:
Even if your Italian is quite good, the letter is in such poor condition that is it may be near impossible for you to read the text. In this case, the historian draws on vital reading skills. If you are working with documents that are in languages other than English, the most obvious skill is the ability to read the target language. My research on Federzoni requires me to work with Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish and (rarely) German. In this case, reading requires both the capacity to comprehend the text and the ability to render it accurately (if need be) in English. A second vital skill is the ability to recognize and reconstruct words and syntaxes in a document, even when you are unable to make out some of the letters in a word or some of the words in a sentence. In other words, you might need to figure out, much like in a crossword puzzle (with only the syntax providing the clues) "What five-letter word with what looks like 's' and 'c' as the third and fourth letters would make sense in the sentence?" Sometimes, it can take hours to decipher a word or sentence. If you are lucky the archive will have an archivist on staff who has worked on a person's private papers and who has the time take time from his or her own work to offer you valuable suggestions. Even if you make out a difficult passage or word on your own, it is always best to ask an archivist to corroborate your guesses. But sometimes, it can be impossible for you or the archivist to make out what is written on the page. And, so you are forced to add a [?] to your transcription or notes. With the use of digital photography, you might have some luck by taking a picture of the document and blowing up the photograph on your computer screen and working through the difficult word or phrase, letter by letter.
So what did the letter say? Here's my reconstruction obtained by blowing up the document, manipulating the photograph through Photoshop and slowly working through the text (it took hours):
Roma 8-X-38
XVI
Caro Federzoni,
ho molto apprezzato ieri sera il tuo intervento contro i provvedimenti razziali che ha così efficacemente rappresentato il nostro pensiero ed ha servito, se non altro, a contenerne i più pericolosi sviluppi.
Un mio tentativo di far liquidare agli impiegati pubblici israeliti la pensione di cui avrebbero goduto se collocati a riposo per limiti di età, non ha avuto fortuna.
Vedi se sia possibile riprendere, in sede esecutiva, la mia proposta.
Cordialmente tuo [De Stefani]
and the translation:
Rome 8 October [19]38, in the sixteenth year of the Fascist Era
Dear Federzoni,
I greatly appreciated your speech last night against the racial laws which has so effectively represented our thought and has served, if nothing else, to limit in it the more dangerous developments.
An attempt of mine to pay off the pensions of Jewish public servants who would have gotten their pensions if they had been allowed to retire because they reached the age limits, was not successful.
See if it is possible to take up again in executive session my proposal.
Cordially yours, [De Stefani]
Now that I know what the document says, I need to understand its historical context and its content. Unfortunately, the file in which I found the document offers no clue to either. What I do know is that Alberto De Stefani, one of the founders of Fascism and a friend of Federzoni, were trying to subvert the Racial Laws as much as they could in order to protect Italian Jews. In this case, they were trying to save the pensions of public servants who could have retired because they had reached the age limits but had decided to continue working. Now, in 1938, since all Jews were being fired from public jobs, they were losing the pension to which they would have been entitled had they retired before the Racial Laws were imposed.
But, what were the meetings mentioned in the letter? To whom did De Stefani refer when he wrote "our thought"? How many Jewish public servants found themselves in this condition? What other measures did Federzoni and De Stefani use to protect Jews as much as they could under the limits of the Racial Laws? To what extent were they successful and why?
So where do I go to find answers? Since there is nothing else in Federzoni's papers that will shed light on this topic, I need to look elsewhere. Doing some bibliographical work, I found the following book:
Marcoaldi, Franco. Vent'anni di economia politica. Le carte De' Stefani 1922-1941. [Twenty years of political economy. The papers of De' Stefani 1922-1941] Milan: F. Angeli, 1986.
The book is located in a library close to the academy, so I can see where this book leads me – whether to published documents or another archive with the private papers of De' Stefani. I have also noted all of the questions that this document raises in a file I call "LEAD.DOC" so that when I go to the State Central Archives, I can see if I can find answers in some of the ministerial documents.
Now, had I just put this letter aside as unreadable, I would not have found the only clue to this aspect of Federzoni's opposition to the Racial Laws. I do not know where this document will take me. But, further research built on this almost illegible letter may enable me to show internal divisions at the very top of the Fascist government over the Racial Laws and how these divisions played out.

