Bruno Segre (4 September 1918 – 27 January 2024) was an Italian lawyer, journalist, politician, and partisan.[1]
Segre was born in Turin on 4 September 1918. He was a student of Luigi Einaudi, graduating in law with a thesis dedicated to Benjamin Constant, founder of liberalism. Due to laws at the time, his Jewish ancestry prevented him from practicing law.[2]
On 21 December 1942, he was arrested for political defeatism and spent over three months in prison, while his father was interned in Abruzzo. In 1943 he began a clandestine existence with his family in a small village in the Cuneo area between Busca, Caraglio and Dronero.[3]
In September 1944, in Turin, Segre attempted to escape arrest by the National Republican Guard. A shootout ensued from which he saved himself thanks to the metal cigarette case he carried in his jacket, which stopped the travel of a bullet. However, he was captured and sent to the barracks in Via Asti and then transferred to the Le Nuove judicial prison, from where he fortunately managed to escape some time later, by bribing a U.P.I. official. In the summer of 1946 he wrote a memoir dedicated to the events of this prison experience, Those of Via Asti, which he published only in 2013.[4]
Segre joined the armed resistance by enlisting in the 1st Alpine division "Giustizia e Libertà" in Pradleves (Val Grana) and took part in the liberation of Caraglio.
He was a Freemason of the Grand Orient of Italy and was highly influenced by Benjamin Constant, founded of the liberalism.[5]
Segre then worked as a reporter at the liberal newspaper "L'Opinione", which replaced "La Stampa". It is in this position that he met Alcide De Gasperi, Ferruccio Parri, Gaetano Salvemini, Piero Calamandrei, Leo Valiani, Giuliano Vassalli and numerous other figures.[6]
After the closure of "L'Opinione", in 1947 he was editor of the social democratic newspaper "Mondo Nuovo". After the publication of this newspaper ceased in 1948, he resumed his legal practice. He passed the prosecutor's exam, while continuing to collaborate with "Paese Sera", "Il Corriere di Trieste", "Corriere di Sicilia" and other newspapers.
In the 1970s, during his press campaign in favor of divorce, he rented a small tourist plane from which 50,000 leaflets were dropped over Turin with this text: "Divorce does not come from heaven, but from the law of the Hon. Fortune".
From 1958 to 1968 he was councilor of the Psychiatric Hospitals of Turin, Collegno, Grugliasco, then councilor of the Piedmont-Valle d'Aosta regional order of journalists and national councilor of the Italian National Press Federation.
From 1975 to 1980 he was group leader of the Italian Socialist Party in the Turin City Council, but left the party at the time of Bettino Craxi; from 1980 to 1990 he was effective president of the San Paolo Banking Institute of Turin and director of various companies owned by the institute.[7]
Segre was president of the Turin provincial Federation of the National Association of Italian Anti-Fascist Political Persecuted People (ANPPIA), honorary president of the National Association of Free Thought "Giordano Bruno" (of whose official body, Libero Pensiero, he was director for years) and honorary president of Turin council for the secularity of institutions. He was also vice-president of the Turin Cremation Society (SOCREM), after having been president of the Italian Federation of SOCREM for 40 years, founder and director of the magazine "L'ara".[7]
Segre was awarded honorary citizenship by the municipalities of Bollengo, Sarzana and Giaveno.[8]
Segre inaugurated a plaque in Dronero in memory of the partisan commander and illustrious journalist Giorgio Bocca and on the staircase of the University of Turin a plaque in memory of Prof. Gioele Solari, professor of philosophy of law.
Segre died in Turin on 27 January 2024, at the age of 105.[9]