Abstract
After the note by the political police on August 6, essentially no other relevant information came to light on the case of the missing professor. But we cannot leave the “case” without some reference to the enquiries carried out in Palermo, where Ettore should have arrived on the morning of March 26.
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- 1.
216 See the interview with Claudio Majorana in (Randazzo 1972).
- 2.
For this purpose, for instance, the reader may consult the official telephone directory for Sicily of 1938.
- 3.
See Bollettino del Ministero dell’Educazione Nazionale (Part II: Administrative Acts), year 63, vol. I, p. 210.
- 4.
See the Bollettino del Ministero dell’Educazione Nazionale (Part II: Administrative Acts) year 66 (1939), vol. I.
- 5.
From the Annual Academic Report of the Royal University of Palermo for the year 1936 (and following).
- 6.
See Atti del primo Congresso dell’Unione Matematica Italiana tenuto in Firenze nei giorni 1-2-3 aprile 1937, Zanichelli, Bologna, 1938.
- 7.
This information is in Vittorio Strazzeri’s file at the Ministry of Education, Direzione Generale Istruzione Superiore, Fascicoli Personale Insegnante e Amministrativo, kept at the Central State Archive in Rome.
- 8.
In Michele Sciuti’s personal file, kept in the archive of the former Psychiatric Hospital “Leonardo Bianchi” of Naples, now Polo Archivistico Sanitario of the Regione Campania, there are several pieces of evidence which illustrate the director’s welcoming, but reserved character.
- 9.
This intuition, together with the possible involvement of Michele Sciuti in Majorana’s disappearance, was suggested by Anna Sicolo, director of the Polo Archivistico Sanitario of Regione Campania. Our warm thanks go to her.
- 10.
Dr. Anna Sicolo’s intuition, referred to in the previous note, was inspired by the fact that, in the archives of the mental hospital, she found a tag among those of the other patients which, unlike the others, carried only the word “Majorana” on it and nothing else, without reference to any medical chart. Unfortunately, because of what happened later on, it has not been possible to find the tag again.
- 11.
Document in the PS file; see (Recami 1987).
- 12.
Document in the MPI file.
- 13.
This letter, also in the said file, was approved by a diligent official who noted that Carrelli was “of Italian race” and had been a registered member of the National Fascist Party since November 6, 1932 (on the occasion, therefore, of his selection for the University of Catania). Clearly, the race laws, only just promulgated (1937) in Italy, were beginning to take effect. Curiously, we can also see that a month later, on November 26, 1937, the chancellor sent the ministry the minutes of the oath Majorana had taken on January 19, 1938; the whole bureaucratic matter about his appointment, as one may remember, was dealt with much earlier, between the end of January and the beginning of February.
- 14.
Note kept in the MPI file.
- 15.
The decree is dated December 6, 1938, but the original note by the (secretary of the) minister is from December 19. The decree is in the MPI file, and is reported in (Recami 1987).
- 16.
L. Castellani, Ipotesi sulla scomparsa di un fisico atomico, television programme broadcast on Italian television in April 1972.
- 17.
For careful review of this information see (Recami 1987).
- 18.
See G. Gullace’s article in the Italian magazine Oggi, October 14, 1978.
- 19.
Y. Neeman’s letter to E. Recami of October 20, 1980 in (Recami 1987).
- 20.
T. Regge’s letter to E. Recami of November 28, 1978 in (Recami 1987).
- 21.
C. Rivera’s letter to E. Recami of October 18, 1978 in (Recami 1987).
- 22.
C. Rivera’s letter to M. Majorana of November 28, 1978 in (Recami 1987).
- 23.
See the interview with Violeta Rivera in Chi l’ha visto?, a television programme broadcast in December 2006 on the Italian TV channel Raitre.
- 24.
The following information was taken from two short biographical reviews of Rivera prepared, respectively, by Jorge Ossadòn in 1999 and by Francisco Claro in 2004 (the year Rivera died). We thank Professor Claro for kindly making them available.
- 25.
See the paper (Rivera, Infante and Claro 1967).
- 26.
Ponz de Leon, television programme, loc. cit.
- 27.
This detail is clearly of secondary importance, and different stories could perhaps live together if we make the plausible assumption that Rivera left several times for Europe from the Argentinian capital.
- 28.
Ossandòn, see supra.
- 29.
Ponz de Leon, television programme, loc. cit.
- 30.
Ponz de Leon, television programme, loc. cit.
- 31.
One should not be surprised by the fact that Rivera was studying from a German book, given that he had been speaking the language since the long stay in Germany during his childhood. Wentzel’s text might have been recommended by one of his professors of German origin who was teaching at the University of Chile: Erich Paul Heilmeier, director of the degree course in physics, who emigrated to Chile in 1937, or Kurt Reiseneger, a physical chemist who had worked in Berlin with Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, and Fritz Strassmann, on the run from Nazi Germany because of his wife’s Jewish origins.
- 32.
Ponz de Leon, television programme, loc. cit.
- 33.
Ponz de Leon, television programme, loc. cit. See also S. Ponz de Leon’s article in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, September 30, 1987 and E. Recami’s in La Stampa, April 1988.
- 34.
Information kindly made available by Mrs. Lucia Baudano.
- 35.
This is also the opinion of the headwaiter of the Hotel Continental at the time, according to what he told Ponz de Leon in the above-mentioned television programme (another second-hand testimony).
- 36.
An example of this is the fact that Rivera identifies Tullio Magliotti as “graduate in electrical engineering” at the beginning of his account, while later on he is already described as “the engineer Magliotti”.
- 37.
This directory is kept, for example, at the Museo Postal y Telegrafos - Museo de Telecomunicaciones of the Correo Central of Buenos Aires.
- 38.
Ponz de Leon, television programme, loc. cit.
- 39.
This information is reported in (Recami 1987); but see also Chi l’ha visto? television programme, loc. cit.
- 40.
Note that, according to Rivera’s statement, Mrs. Talbert had a telephone line in her boarding house.
- 41.
The points discussed here can be found in the following texts: Ciclo de conferencias cientificas y de caràcter general. Tomo III, Sociedad Cientìfica Argentina, Buenos Aires, 1945; L. A. Santalò et al., Evolucìon de las ciencias en la Repùblica Argentina 1923–1972. Tomo I. Matemàtica, Sociedad Cientifica Argentina, Buenos Aires, 1972.
- 42.
Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales, Catalogo de la Biblioteca, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, 1931.
- 43.
That is, (Bianchi 1928), (Speiser 1927), (Weyl 1928).
- 44.
Reported in (Recami 1987).
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Esposito, S. (2017). The Last Chapter. In: Ettore Majorana. Springer Biographies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54319-2_10
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