This exhibition reconstructs the migration journey of psychotherapists Ernst Bernhard and Dora Friedländer from Berlin to Rome following Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. Connected with the Jungian school, in love, he Jewish and she non-Jewish, they were forced to leave Germany. Their story is both a private one and a lens through which broader processes can be observed: the violence of uprooting, but also the value of dialogue between cultures and of the new identities that emerge from it.
The exhibition begins with an introductory section devoted to the Jungian diaspora from Nazi Germany. It then unfolds through chronological and thematic panels retracing the lives and movements of Ernst and Dora, from Imperial Germany to their decision to settle in Rome after the Second World War. The panels are accompanied by display cases containing original documents, as well as multimedia installations offering spaces for reflection and interaction devoted to key moments in their story.
The materials on display come from the couple’s personal archive, which was donated to the University through the Aspi Centre – Historical Archive of Italian Psychology and is preserved at the Historical Archives Centre (PAST). Photographs, letters, paintings, horoscopes, diaries and short films — supplemented by contextual documents — make it possible to reconstruct the central aspects of every migration: the pressures that lead people to leave, the criteria used to choose a destination, supportive relationships and the processes of integration into the country of arrival.
They also shed light on the history of a pioneering couple in analytical psychology in Italy, who, after 1945, became a point of reference for intellectuals and prominent patients — from Federico Fellini to Natalia Ginzburg, from Adriano Olivetti to Giorgio Manganelli, as well as Cristina Campo and Allen Tate — and for anyone wishing to train as a Jungian analyst.
The exhibition will be open to the public from 16 September to 31 December 2026 in the exhibition area of the University Library’s Main Branch, Building U6 Agorà, second floor, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milan.
Admission is free and open to everyone on the following days and at the following times:
- Monday to Friday, from 8.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m.
- Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 1.30 p.m.
Opening event: 16 September 2026 at 5.30 p.m.
To attend, it is necessary to complete the online form.
