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Home , Cedar Paul, Italianization, Italiani brava gente, Italian Fascism, Italian Jews, Jonathan Steinberg

DISPROVING BRAVA GENTE: THE MYTH AND REALITY OF THE SHOAH IN

A thesis submitted to the Kent State University Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for University Honors

by

Morgan Duckett

May, 2018

Thesis written by

Morgan Duckett

Approved by

______, Advisor

______, Chair, Department of History

Accepted by

______, Dean, Honors College

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE………………………………………………………………………………...iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………………………………….….vi

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………...1

II. -BLAZING SCHOLARS: A BRIEF ……...4

III. ITALIAN : A POLITICAL EVOLUTION…………….7

IV. ALL ABOUT THE MONEY: THE ITALIAN ECONOMIC

REALITY...... 20

V. ROMAN VS. NORDIC: AN EXAMINAITON OF ITALO-GERMAN

RELATIONS……………………………………………...……………..25

VI. THE ORIGINATION OF THE MYTH………...………………………..28

VII. CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………….……..33

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………..36

iii PREFACE

“Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.”

- John XXIII

Many people helped me clear obstacles and achieve my goals in the writing of this thesis. In its original form, my thesis was concerned with disproving the notion of brava gente and was to be presented as a short historical documentary showcasing my interdisciplinary studies and abilities. Traveling abroad to Florence, Italy, in June of 2017 under Kent State University’s Office of Global Education, my goal was to obtain interviews with Jewish who survived the as the primary source for my thesis research and documentary content. Upon returning from Florence, my goal was to supplement these interviews with those of Italian who survived and moved to America. However, a variety of factors I could not anticipate— leads did not materialize, and the difficulty in finding still-living Jewish-Italian , among the leading two— meant that my goals had to be revised. As I came to appreciate, this is an inevitable part of the creative process.

On top of that, adhering to the demands of my classes that accompanied studying abroad in Florence, while simultaneously trying to conduct my research for my thesis made it hard to dedicate the necessary time my thesis research required. However, Lady

iv Fortune was to me and granted me with the opportunity to interview surviving

Jewish Italian, Sara Voltara. While the interview was not as lengthy as I had hoped, it afforded me a tantalizing window into what I know can one day, given then time and resources, still become a documentary project. In the meantime, I was still able to use some information gleaned from this interview in helping me construct this thesis.

By changing the nature of my thesis, I only made it stronger, because doing so granted me the ability to really flesh out my argument and all the research I conducted to prove it. It also gave me the space to showcase all the knowledge I had accumulated concerning this topic from my very first encounter with it in Dr. Steigmann-Gall’s The

Holocaust course taken in Spring 2017—when he termed the experience of as “unique”—up to the past year of research required to produce the final product.

Reflecting back on my thesis’ evolution, I can confidently say I am proud of what it has become. Referring back to the quote by Pope John XXIII, I took my inability to achieve my original goal of creating a historical documentary, and redefined that goal to fit within my realm of possibility; and, in the insightful words of , “art is never finished, only abandoned.” The documentary element for this project has not been abandoned; only, it lies outside the realm of possibility for this thesis’ time construct. My ultimate career goal is to become a historical documentarian, and the fruits of this thesis might just be the art I create to launch me into this passion of mine.

v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To Dr. Kristin Stasiwoski, thank you so much for inspiring me to embark on this thesis journey altogether, and serving on my Oral Defense Committee; if it were not for your words of motivation and encouragement, I would not have striven to achieve the highest honors my academic career at Kent State University offers me. Thank you for making studying abroad possible, and forever being a role model to me, both in my academic career and personal life.

To Dr. Richard Steigmann-Gall, thank you so much for being a mentor to me not only during my thesis but also throughout my academic career. Your expertise has pushed me to become a better historian and observer of the world around me. I am so thankful for all you did for me in your role as my thesis advisor, and for all the opportunities I have had to learn from you throughout my academic career.

To my brother Ryan Duckett, thank you for always, without hesitation, being my second eyes not only for this thesis project, but many other written works I have completed. Thank you for your prowess of the written language and extremely helpful advice throughout the years.

To Dr. Marcello Fantoni, thank you so much for agreeing to be on my Oral

Defense Committee so last minute. Thank you for meeting with me and encouraging me to keep pursuing my research and ambitions long past my graduation this May from Kent

State University.

vi To Dr. Don-John Dugas, thank you so much for agreeing to serve on my Oral

Defense Committee as my HOCOPOCO member. Thank you for upholding the Honors

Thesis’ reputation of prestige and merit and validating my thesis work as such.

To my parents, Shari Duckett and Tim Duckett, and friends Kara Gottesman,

Jordan Smitek and others; thank you for your endless support and always pushing me to be the best possible version of myself. When I wanted to give up, it was you guys who helped me push through. Thank you for always having open ears and being a shoulder I can lean on.

vii 1

I

INTRODUCTION

Compassion and brutality can coexist in the same individual and in the same moment, despite all logic; and for all that, compassion eludes logic.

-

The aftermath of II resulted in much more than the tangible chaos of millions of people homeless, in ruins, and the international economy completely crashed. It resulted in the strategic renegotiation and dissemination of national stereotypes and identities. Movies produced after WWII in both Italy and the United

States, such as Mediterraneo (1991) or Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (1994), present the

Italians in their conduct during that war as humanists and lovers of life, nominal allies of the but diametrically opposed to genocidal atrocities. These movies’ plots consist of an Italian rescue mission to save Jews from certain death; when in reality, the

Italian regime never mandated or engaged in a Jewish rescue operation. These aspects of postwar popular culture reflect on the popular narrative of the Italians as the brava gente: “the good people.” In fact, even before WWII was over, high-ranking Italian officials had already been working hard to propagate this narrative as a way to obfuscate the true role the Fascist regime played in the Shoah. This construct engendered in a 2

mythical Fascist regime incapable of denying “Jews their inalienable .”1 In this way they not only denied a role in the Nazi’s , but as with cinematic depictions, committed themselves to the act of saving Jews from the “sadistic horrors”2 of their Nazi ally.

The brava gente construct has been commonly accepted worldwide; only recently has it entered the realm of debate amongst scholars. The evidence provided by Holocaust scholarship would seem, at first glance, to affirm the brava gente narrative: a surprising

Italian Jews aligned themselves with due to its relative lack of antisemitism;3 foreign Jews from the Axis occupied areas of , , , ,

Hungary, , , , and all flocked to Italian occupied zones in the belief that they would be protected from death camp ; and deportations of and Jewish refuges did not occur until after the Nazi invasion in

September 1943.4 In 1937 the Italian wrote a letter to their Jewish community asking God to “defend and protect… , and Founder of the empire.”5 In spite of this evidence, there is reason to interrogate and ultimately dismantle this myth of the brava gente. We can do this by examining its origins, and by analyzing what Italians actually did during the Holocaust. I believe doing so reveals that in fact,

1 R. Anthony Pedatella, “Italian Attitudes Toward Jewry in the Twentieth Century,” Jewish Social Studies 47, no. 1 (Winter 1985): 52. 2 Editorial, “How Italy protected Jews from the Holocaust,” Chicago Tribune, October 10, 2014, Midwest Edition. 3 Ema and Andrew Viterbi, interview by Alessandro Cassin, “One Family, Two Diverging Experiences in Fascist Italy” (transcription), Primo Levi Center, November 24, 2014, accessed September 2017, http://primolevicenter.org/printed-matter/one-family-two-diverging-experiences-in-fascist-italy-a- conversation-with-andrew-and-erna-finci-viterbi/. 4 Richard Steigmann-Gall, “Italy and the Jews” (unpublished lecture, Kent State University, Kent, April 20, 2017). 5 Michele Sarfatti, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy: From Equality to , trans. John and Anne Tedeschi (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 258. 3

Italians who saved Jews very frequently did so as a result of political and economic opportunism, as well as a direct response to Italo-German relations, rather than some essential character or quality of the Italian people as such. Using private and public government records, photo collections, and published testimonials of survivors, this paper will examine some of the myths surrounding this stereotype.

4

II

TRAIL-BLAZING SCHOLARS: A BRIEF HISTORIOGRAPHY

Deconstructing the notion of brava gente is a relatively new departure for historians, but scholarly works that aid in building its argument date back forty years ago.

One of the most cited works regarding the brava gente construct is Meir Michaelis’ 1978 book, Mussolini and the Jews. His research analyzes the exigencies of the -

Axis, Italo-German relations more broadly, and the impact they held over Italian Fascist anti-Semitic policies. He concludes that Mussolini’s switch from a seeming philosemite to an antisemite was due to his opportunist nature and the inherent Fascist pursuit of empire.6 He goes on to state that the Italian resistance to the Final Solution served as a way to fight against German encroachments on Italian sovereignty rather than German , and rebuke the Germans for the exclusion of Italians from their of

Nordic superiority. Renzo De Felice’s work in 2001, entitled The Jews in Fascist Italy, reaffirmed Michaelis’ conclusions using different evidence. In his book, Felice analyzes every step and change that occurred in Italian Fascist history and how those political and economic progressions impacted Italo-Jewish relations. One of his book’s main objectives was to establish a sharp distinction between German National and

Italian Fascism, claiming that their movements and were quite different.

6 Sarfatti, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy, 412. 5

More recently Michele Sarfatti has added his voice to the brava gente debate in his The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy, published in 2006. In it, Sarfatti analyzes the history of

Italian Jews between 1922 through 1945. His main objective is to lay bare the true responsibilities of the Fascist regime in the Nazis’ systematic extermination of Jews, by analyzing archival data and organizing that data into analytical charts. His work aids in debunking the myth of brava gente by proving the treatment of Jews was determined by the political opportunity most favorable to Italian success. In the same year, Davide

Rodogno established himself as the leading scholar antagonist of the brava gente myth.

With the publication of his work Fascism’s European Empire, Rodogno disproves brava gente by studying the occupational history of the Italian Fascist regime in Croatia,

Yugoslavia, , and parts of France during WWII. Using a plethora of archival sources, Rodogno concludes that the Jews were nothing more than pawns in Mussolini’s game of Italo-German relations and international opinion. He reviles the fact that diplomatic protection was never extended to Jews in the occupied territories, the round- up and expulsion of illegal Jewish refugees was conducted knowing that expulsion equated extermination, the borders were closed and monitored to keep Jewish refugees out, and the refusal to hand over Jews was solely a matter of prestige, not morality.

In spite of these scholarly developments, I have found that the notion of brava gente continues to resonate among non-Italians more broadly, due to a language barrier and reinforcement of popular culture stereotypes. Movies produced after the war, from

Roberto Rossellini’s Open City (1945) to Roberto Berigni’s (1999), have represented the fascist Italian past in such a manner; what has resulted is a collective 6

memory depicting Italians as victims of Nazi Fascism, incapable of being a racist or antisemitic.7 This presumption also finds its way into public commemoration; for instance, a report from the Holocaust in Washington DC states, “The Italians tried to protect Jewish refugees.” Another example is an article recently published by The

Chicago Tribune entitled “How Italy protected Jews from the Holocaust.”8 It is because of publications and claims such as those listed above, from sources whose purpose is to serve historical remembrance, that I find fault with the brava gente construct. There needs to be more Italian scholarship concerning brava gente translated into English, so that those who do not speak Italian can reassess Italian Fascist history based off primary sources and not solely national stereotypes found in mass entertainment.

Scholars such as , , and Jonathan Steinberg have all published works arguing that Fascist Italy was incapable of carrying out atrocities on the scale of Hitler's because of a combination of military incompetence and Italian brava gente. To prove this brava gente construct, they highlight individual acts as proof for an inherent national character composed of humanitarianism that precluded acts of antisemitism, and apply this ‘inherent’ national character to the Italian population as a whole. Those who tend to believe in the brava gente construct also tend to believe that antisemitism was forced onto Italy due to from Hitler, something Meir Michaelis

7 7 Claudio Fogu, “: The Legacy of Fascist Historical Culture on Italian Politics and Memory,” The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe (Duke University 2006) 147. 8 Editorial, “How Italy Protected Jews from the Holocaust,” The Chicago Tribune (October 10, 2014): 1-3, accessed September 19, 2017, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-holocaust-italian- jews-edit-1010-20141010-story.html. 7

strongly disagrees with and makes strenuous efforts to disprove in his Mussolini and the

Jews.

Therefore, the importance of this research resides in the necessity for non-Italian scholarship arguing brava gente as a myth. This study will aid in deconstructing the

Italian stereotypes formulated on exaggerated notions of national character; a destructive habit modern society too often engages. By publishing this scholarship, a more diverse audience can enter this debate of brava gente, and a light can expose the reality of Italian

Fascist action that the shift in Italian politics post-WWII and forms of mass entertainment left hidden in the dark.9 Reading this scholarship, one will come to understand that while there were those Italians who risked their lives to save Jews according to their moral character— as was true of individuals in all European countries—there were many more who did nothing to stop Jewish . The purpose of this study is not to prove that the brava gente myth is totally false, but much more of it is need of re-thinking than one assumes.

9 Claudio Fogu, “Italiani Brava Gente: The Legacy of Fascist Historical Culture on Italian Politics and Memory,” The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe (Duke University 2006) 147-175. 8

III

ITALIAN ANTISEMITISM: A POLITICAL EVOLUTION

To begin the process of debunking brava gente, one must understand the as it relates to the Italian Fascist regime. According to the most notorious antisemitic tract ever written, The Protocols of the Elders of , there was a plot of

“International Jewry” that was run by a board of power brokers who worked towards the ultimate goal of global domination.10 Although promoted by prominent Fascist Party leader Giovanni Preziosi, The Protocols did not alter the Italian opinion of Jewish

Italians, but rather created paranoia only over the strength and power of “International

Jewry” and banking. In 1932 Mussolini still held the opinion that Italy’s Jews were “good

Fascists and good Italians” and that a “sound system of government has no Jewish problem.”11 At the same time, however, he was also convinced that Jews controlled the

Western economy and could greatly hurt Italian investment in the international market. In

1933, Mussolini wrote a letter to Hitler trying to dissuade him from his racial campaign against the Jews because he feared it would cause “economic reprisals of world Jewry,”12 and it was just “better to leave them alone.”13 In a report written by Vittorio Cerruti,

10 Sarfatti, 14. 11 Ernst R., von Starhemberg, Between Hitler and Mussolini: Memoirs of Ernst Rudiger Prince Starhemberg (: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1942), 93. 12Gene Bernardini, “The Origins and Development of Racial Anti-Semitism in Fascist Italy” Journal of Modern History 49 (1977): 440. 13 Ernst R., von Starhemberg, Between Hitler and Mussolini, 93. 9

Italian Royal Ambassador, he states that the Nazis’ campaign against the Jews was a

“gigantic mistake” due to the “consequences it will have on capital and investment.”14

Despite Mussolini’s fear and respect for Jews and their talents in trade, commerce, and international banking, he constructed a climate in which antisemitism could survive. In the 1922 Demographic and Population Census, citizens were asked to indicate their religious denomination. By 1923 the first signs of segregation appeared in the Gentile Law reform with the mandatory implementation of a one-hour Catholicism class into the public schooling system.15 Mussolini allowed for Jews to be harassed in his newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia, and he encouraged opposition to the Jewish subversion occurring in other European countries.16 As early as 1933, Mussolini quietly removed all his direct subordinates who were Jews or had Jewish last names.17 The following year on

February 17, he published his answer to the “” in an article entitled “Una

Soluzione” (“A Solution”). In it, he paradoxically worked towards Zionist goals in suggesting that all Jews immigrate to , where a “true and proper state” for Jews could be created.18 If Fascism were to compete with , then Fascism had to appeal to the numerous -haters in foreign Fascist governments and rightest groups so it could rival Nazism in its allure. This line of reason can be seen in Mussolini’s advice to the

14 Vittorio Cerruti to Berlin, report, May 5, 1933-XI, rpd. The Jews in Fascist Italy: A History, trans. Renzo De Felice (New York: Enigma Books, 2001), 629. 15 Marcella Simoni, interview by Morgan Duckett, Florence, Italy, June 27, 2017. 16 Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, 61. 17 Sarfatti, 67. 18 Benito Mussolini, “Una Soluzione,” Il Popolo d’Italia, Febuary 17, 1934, in The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy: From Equality to Persecution, ed. Michele Sarfatti (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 67. 10

Austrian Chancellor when Mussolini suggested he “add a dash of antisemitism”19 to his programme.

How did the climate regarding the Jews shift from the relative philosemitism of

Fascism’s early years to the Manifesto of Italian Racism passed in 1938? When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mussolini condemned his theories of .20 In a conversation with , a German-Swiss author, Mussolini stated: “nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today.…No such doctrine will ever find wide acceptance here in Italy.”21 Articles published in Il Popolo d’Italia condemned German racialism based on their doctrine of Nordic superiority,22 calling it “scientifically untenable and politically disastrous.”23 In a letter written by

French ambassador Count de Chambrun shortly after meeting with Mussolini, de

Chambrun reported, “there could be no solidarity between Fascism and Nazism, given his

[Mussolini’s] opposition to Hitler’s racialism and antisemitism.”24

Mussolini’s ridicule of Hitler’s redemptive antisemitism was not based solely on

Mussolini’s personal ideology, but was also viewed through the lens of foreign policy, particularly, Hitler’s attempt to annex in 1934. Italians viewed Austria as a vital

19 Benito Mussolini, Engelbert Dollfuss, Karl Hans Sailer, Geheimer Briefwechsel Mussolini-Dollfuss (: Verlag der Wiener Volksbuchhandlung, 1949), 53, as found in Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, 61. 20 Aryanism is the idea that race is a biological science and found in the purity of blood. 21 Emil Ludwig, Talks with Mussolini, trans. by Eden and Cedar Paul, (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1933), 69-70. 22 Nordic Superiority is a that situates those with ‘pure’ Nordic blood, in this case German, at the top and all other races as inferior subordinates. 23 Meir Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy 1922-1945 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978), 74. 24 Count de Chambrun to Paul-Boncour, letter, August 15, 1933, in Mussolini and the Jews : German- Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy 1922-1945, ed. Meir Michaelis (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978), 73. 11

client-state and its annexation into Germany would have undermined Italy’s economic and geopolitical interest. At this point Italy was considered the stronger regime than

Germany, and Mussolini felt confident in rebuking Hitler openly. In the May 1934 publication of Il Popolo d’Italia, Mussolini classified Hitler’s annexation attempt as a reincarnation of Pan-Germanism, calling Nazism “racialism, drunk with a stubborn bellicosity.”25 In a discussion between Mussolini and Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg, an

Austrian nationalist and conservative politician, Mussolini called Hitler a “dangerous madman”26 and insisted that a common front against him be created quickly. This common front became known as the Stresa Front, which brought together ,

France, and Italy in an effort to combat Hitler’s Pan-Germanist intentions. It was during this political climate that Mussolini met with Dr. Nahum Goldmann, a leading Zionist and the founder of the . Mussolini told Goldmann that the Jews are “a great indestructible people…. Herr Hitler is a joke that will be over in a few years.

Have no fear of him and tell your Jews to have no fear of him either.”27

Everything changed in 1935 with the Italo-Abyssinia war. A vital component inherent to Fascism is the need to expand in order to guarantee the “continuation” of its people. In Italy, this need was classified as spazio vitale, “vital space,” and was considered to be part of that vital space. Ethiopia was also seen as Italy’s opportunity to regain and reinforce the prestige of Roman antiquity as reborn in the Italian empire

25 Editorial, “Teutonica,” Il Popolo d’Italia, May 26, 1934, in Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy 1922-1945, ed. Meir Michaelis (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978), 75. 26 Mussolini- Goldmann Meeting, transcription, November 13, 1934, rpd. The Jews in Fascist Italy: A History, trans. Renzo De Felice (New York: Enigma Books, 2001), 644. 27 Mussolini- Goldmann Meeting, transcription, November 13, 1934, rpd. The Jews in Fascist Italy: A History, trans. Renzo De Felice (New York: Enigma Books, 2001), 644. 12

through colonization. Mussolini recognized that the only way to justify , to convince Italians of their superiority, and to convince the soon-to-be-conquered

Ethiopians of their inferiority, was to “develop a clear racial consciousness.”28 Therefore, he adapted the concepts of race theory, which had once made him laugh due to its absurdity.29 Now, owing to Italy’s own expansionist ambitions, established notions of inferiority based on “physical characteristics”30 were introduced for the first time in

Italian Fascist history. The Italian public sphere was flooded with and magazines, such as La Difesa della Razza (The Defense of the Race), depicting caricatures of Africans. According to Gene Bernardini, the belief in “” became an important element to the security of the Empire.31 By justifying imperial policies along racial lines, Fascist Italy begun isolating itself from Western allies and drew themselves closer to alliance with the Nazi regime.

Before the Italo-Abyssinia war, Mussolini called Hitler “his clumsy imitator” and considered the rise of Nazism a sister movement that had an embarrassing element of messianic antisemitism.32 Concerned with Western public opinion and the presumed power of “International Jewry,” Mussolini created an anti-Hitler façade by dissociating

Fascist Italy with Hitler’s crusade against the Jews. However, Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia led to sanctions from the ; the League was extremely popular amongst

Jews worldwide for its minority treaties protecting Jews in areas such as and

28 Bernardini, 442. 29 Ibid., 439. 30 E.M. Robertson, “Race as a factor in Mussolini’s Foreign Policy in and Europe,” Journal of Contemporary History 23 (1988): 48. 31 Bernardini, 443. 32 Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, 61. 13

Austria.33 The League of Nations, although led by two countries with histories of the largest overseas empires, Great Britain and France, was now composed of nation states that implored liberal and democratic governance; therefore the League disapproved of

Mussolini’s colonization efforts. Enraged by the League’s hypocrisy, Mussolini sought revenge by permitting the antisemitic faction of the Fascist party to attack Jews in the press. These attacks were not only a form of retaliation against the League of Nations, but also served as a way to identify Jews as anti-fascist, and therefore enemies of the state.

Mussolini’s allowance of Jewish harassment in the press stemmed from his diminishing fear of “International Jewry,” perhaps, but was also a result of his inability to stop Hitler in Germany. Leaflets were displayed throughout Italy stating: “FIGHT the infernal triple-headed snake: , Masonry, !”34 On March 31, 1934, the headline of Turin’s La Stampa declared “Arrest of Jewish Antifascist Working with

Exiles Abroad.”35 The article reported that a group of Italian anti-fascist Jews had conspired to overthrow the regime and that the fascist police arrested them. However, this

“” was nothing more than the attempt to smuggle socialist leaflets from Paris into Italy in order to inform factory workers that the Fascist government was against them.36 The dramatic language used in the article was Mussolini’s way of officially notifying the Italian police force that they could consider Jews threats to both public order and the Fascist regime.37

33 E.M. Robertson, “Race as a factor in Mussolini’s Foreign Policy in Africa and Europe,” 42. 34 Renzo De Felice, The Jews in Fascist Italy: A History (New York: Enigma Books, 2001), 386. 35 Anna Jona, interview by Sergio Parussa, “Would Have Liked to Flee to Patagonia: Conversations with Anna Jona,” (translation), 17. 36 Ibid., 17. 37 Sarfatti, 71. 14

Claiming Italy as a victim of Western hypocrisy, Mussolini began aligning himself with Hitler as a result of the sanctions placed on Italy by the League of Nations.

The political climate had now shifted, forcing Mussolini to align himself with Hitler in order to achieve his imperialist goals. On February 22, 1936, Mussolini reported to the

German Ambassador that “for Italy, Stresa was finally dead”; on March 24 Mussolini refused to sign a draft of an anti-German resolution; on April 1, he ordered his diplomats to take a “more markedly pro-German line” while on that same day, secretly signed an accord between German and Italian police forces38; October 24, the Rome-Berlin Axis was formed.39 Finally, Mussolini completely broke all relations with Western democracies by denouncing the League of Nations and withdrawing Italian membership on December 11, 1937, for their “shameful attempt at the strangulation of the Italian people.”40 By March 12, 1938, Hitler successfully annexed Austria, some four years after

Mussolini stood in the way of his first attempt. This signified to the world that Nazi

Germany was now the senior partner. Trying to fight Hitler now, after severing his links with the Western democracies, would undoubtedly result in Italian defeat. Therefore,

Mussolini chose the only other option he had for political success and avoidance of chaos, without having to surrender Italian imperialism and prestige. Even then, as late as

1937 Mussolini confided behind closed doors to Austrian Chancellor ,

“We do not accept the ”41 and that racial purity was an “absurd”42

38 Boccchini and Himmler Agreements, April 1, 1936, rpd. The Jews in Fascist Italy: A History, trans. Renzo De Felice (New York: Enigma Books, 2001), 675. 39 Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, 96. 40 Editorial, “Italy Leaves League of Nations,” The Sydney Morning Herald (London), , 1937, accessed October, 2017, http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17441091. 41 Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, 35. 15

concept. But also in the same conversation, due to the shift in the political climate,

Mussolini was quoted as saying “racialism and anti-Semitism were being made to appear as important politically as they are unimportant in real substance. But there are reasons of state which I must obey.”43

Knowing that the alliance with Germany would be problematic to Jewish Italians,

Mussolini decided that repressing Jews himself, through his own racial laws, would prevent any retaliation from Jewish Italians. It would also build favorable relations with

Hitler by establishing a public identity of antisemitism more on par with Nazi ideology.

Anticipating the shock and confusion that would be felt by Italians, especially faithful

Jewish Italian Fascists, Mussolini published “The Manifesto on Race” in Il Giornale d’Italia on July 14, 1938, to prepare them. Signed by one hundred and eighty scientists and academics, “The Manifesto on Race” was proof of Mussolini’s alteration of Fascist ideology according to political opportunism. The same Fascism that once considered an

Italian to be anyone who shared a common historical and cultural identity was now the

Fascism that defined the Italian as belonging to the “pure Italian race…its civilization

Aryan,” identifiable by distinctive characteristics specifically excluding Jews.44

In the Fall of 1938 a series of racial laws, Le Leggi Razziali, were passed affecting both public and private sectors of Italian Jewish life. Italian Jews were now banned from teaching and attending public schools, forced out of their jobs in public employment, and barred from owning public property. In regards to private life, the new laws legally

42 Edvige Mussolini, Mio Fratello Benito, trans. Rosetta Ricci Crisolini (Florence: La Fenice, 1957): 171. 43 Meir Michaelis, “The Attitude of the Fascist Regime to Jews in Italy,” Washem Studies 4 (1960): 39. 44 “Razzismo Italiano,” La Difesa della Razza, August 5, 1938, in The Fascist Revolution in Italy: A Brief History with Documents, ed. Marla Stone, trans. Staisey Divorski (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013), 95- 97. 16

forbade marriage between “an Italian citizen of the race” with Jewish Italians, as well as prohibited Jews from hiring non-Jews.45 Like the Nuremburg Laws passed in

Germany in 1935, Italy’s Racial Laws outlined the criteria for determining who belonged to the Jewish race. Article 9 demanded that all persons belonging to the Jewish race must be reported and entered into official state and population registers. It was these registration lists, that were easily accessible and willingly handed over to the Nazis in

1943 by the Office of Demography, that resulted in the swift round up and of

Italian Jews to the death camps. This dramatic policy shift from 1933 to 1938 is perfectly explained in a letter between Neville Laski and an unnamed Italian. The unnamed Italian writes, “Mussolini was neither a Jew-lover nor a Jew-hater but purely and simply an opportunist… if philosemitism pays, he is philosemitic; if antisemitism pays, he is quite willing equally to be an antisemitic.”46

Another significant in deconstructing the myth of brava gente fell after

World War II began. In August of 1942, Mussolini received a telegram from Prince , The Minister of State at the German Embassy. The telegram instructed that all Jews in the occupied Italian zones of Croatia be handed over to the Ustasha regime for the purpose of “deportation and annihilation.”47 Mussolini wrote back, with full knowledge that mass deportation meant mass murder, “nulla osta”---no objection.

However, he instructed General Mario Roborri, the of the , “to

45 “Measures for the Defense of the Italian Race: September 5, 1938,” and “Measures for the Defense of the Italian Race: November 17, 1938,” in The Fascist Revolution in Italy: A Brief History with Documents, ed. Marla Stone, trans. Staisey Divorski (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013), 98-104. 46 Neville Laski to Vansittart, letter, April 7, 1937, in Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy 1922-1945, ed. Meir Michaelis (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978), 408. 47 Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Il Duce, “Appunto Per Il Duce,” telegram, August 21, 1942-XX, in All or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust 1941-1943, ed. Jonathan Steinberg (London: Routledge, 1990), 56. 17

invent whatever excuse he liked but not hand a single Jew over to the Germans.”48 This was by no means a humanitarian rescue operation but, rather, another example of how the

Jews were pawns in Mussolini’s game of political opportunism. The interment of Jews inside Italian occupied zones demonstrated on the one hand that the Italians were not subordinates to the Nazi regime, and on the other that Italian sovereignty would not tolerate any form of Nazi interference.

This was an extremely important point to make not only for the sake of Italian prestige, a vital component to the foundation and strength of , but for the sake of the Cetniks and ensuring their continued military aid. The Cetniks were a Serbian militia whose willingness to fight voluntarily on the side of the Second Army was extremely vital to its success. Given the ineffable hatred between Croatians and Serbs, surrendering Jews to the Ustasha regime would have alarmed the Cetniks into believing

“one day they too might be given over to the Ustasi.”49

The refusal to hand over Jews in the occupied Italian zones was also a “tit for tat”50 after Germany refused to give up .51 Operation Barbarossa opened the floodgate to a horrific, chaotic, and inhumane race war in the East. Due to limited supplies and men and pressure from Hitler, Mussolini had to send the majority of his war materiel to the Eastern Front. This frustrated Mussolini because he was also

48 Leon Poliakov and Jacques Sabille, Jews Under Italian Occupation (Paris: Editions Du Centre, 1955) 148. 49 to the Supreme Command, letter, September 22, 1942, in All or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust 1941-1943, trans. Jonathan Steinberg (London: Routledge, 1990), 63. 50 Davide Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire: Italian Occupation During the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 2006), 364. 51 Operation Barbarossa was the plans for German invasion into the as a way to enslave the Soviets and make Russia Germany’s . Lebensraum is the concept that the must expand its borders in order to ensure the growth and survival of its people. 18

anxious about the Western border of Italy with France and trying to maintain his front in

Africa, which was slowly being liberated by Allied forces. Most pressing of all was the

American military’s rapid approach in , which foretold of an attack upon

Italian soil. In meetings held between Hitler and Mussolini in April 1943 at Klessheim and Feltre, Mussolini proposed to cease the hostilities with the Soviet Union, so that more men, materials, and German aid could be sent to the Western and African fronts, as well as to the defense of the Southern Italian border. When Hitler refused, we have reason to suspect that Mussolini decided the best way to seek revenge was by withholding the

Jews; giving him the power to haggle over the price Germans would have to pay to obtain, what would later be known as, their Final Solution.

Because Mussolini sought political revenge in internment over transfer of Jews does not mean all Jews were safe from deportation. Mussolini had to appear somewhat cooperative regarding Hitler’s demands, to ensure the continuation of their alliance. The

MAE (Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) created a list of very specific and complex criteria for determining which Jews would be interned and which Jews would be handed over. In the end, 1,500 Jews in the Italian occupied zone of Croatia did not meet the criteria, and were handed over to the Croatian authorities. In , 300 Jewish refugees were rounded up and deported in groups to the Germans. In a similar account, the famous Primo Levi was also handed over to German forces after being promised that on “good fascist faith,” he would be kept under Italian internment.52

52 Primo Levi, interview by Ferdinando Camon, Conversations with Primo Levi, trans. John Shepley (Marlboro: The Marlboro Press, 1989), 9. 19

The dramatic shift in policy from 1933 to 1938 and the interning or deporting of

Jews, was determined by the balancing act between Italian defiance and cooperation with the Germans—not a matter of humanitarian principle. Once the Germans invaded Italy in

1943 as a hostile power, and established Mussolini as the head of the Salo Republica, a puppet regime, they were able to swiftly and sufficiently deport the Jews in fascist- occupied zones; the Italians already having concentrated many of them in internment camps tragically facilitated this action. In Yugoslavia alone, the Italians had confined at least 100,000 civilians in concentration camps. In Greece, Italians forced 12,000 civilians into concentration camps or prisons.53 Consequently, Italians ended up arresting about half of the Jews who were eventually deported.54

One might conclude that the increasing numbers of Jewish refugees flooding into

Italian occupied zones throughout the war, many of whom believed that the Italians would protect them from , stands as proof of brava gente. However, diving deeper reveals another explanation. As early as 1939, propaganda and Fascist authorities began encouraging Italian Jews to leave Italy permanently.55 In 1940, a draft of the Legal

Decree for the Resolution of the Racial Question was formulated; its solution was expulsion of “all members of the Jewish race.”56 Those Italian Jews who did not leave faced increased taxes, property confiscation, or internment in work camps. Obtaining visas and border passes into Italy became next to impossible as a way to prevent the

53 Davide Rodogno, “Italiani brava gente? Fascist Italy’s Policy Toward the Jews in the , April 1941-July 1943,” 235. 54 Ema and Andrew Viterbi, interview by Alessandro Cassin, “One Fmaily, Two Diverging Experiences in Fascist Italy.” 55 Ibid. 56 De Felice, The Jews in Fascist Italy, 713. 20

“invasion” of foreign Jews.57 By 1941, the Italian borders of occupied zones and Italy were officially closed and policed to keep Jewish refugees from entering. Those who managed to enter were expelled on the grounds that it was to maintain law and order for reasons of “racial hygiene,” and because the cost of internment was too high.58 Many of those in internment camps died from heart failure, cachexia, and bronchopneumonia owed to the extremely poor sanitation conditions and food shortages within the camp.59

Therefore, the mas increase of Jewish refugees into Italian occupied zones can be explained with the logic that any treatment was better than that of Nazi Germany; some of the Jewish refugees may have fled to Italian occupied zones under the pretext that

Italians were brava gente; however, their main line of reasoning was to do whatever they could to escape Nazi Germany.

57 Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, 367. 58 Rodogno, “Italiani brava gente? Fascist Italy’s Policy Toward the Jews in the Balkans, April 1941-July 1943,” 224. 59 Leandro Miccolis to Command of Concentration Camp, “Communication of Deaths December 11- December 20, 1942,” December 21, 1942, DRA15, Archives of the Republic of , accessed October, 2017, http://www.campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=35. 21

IV

ALL ABOUT THE MONEY: THE ITALIAN ECONOMIC REALITY

Decrees to prevent “Jewish invasion,” such as those listed in the previous chapter, were hidden under their reality of poor enforcement, often due to lack of economic means. The Italo-German alliance was crucial not only to Mussolini’s imperialistic goals, but also to the Italian economy. Raw materials, air-raid defenses, weaponry, and technology were given to Italy by Germany.60 Owing to Italy’s weak economy, the

Fascist regime did not actually have the men or the means to close or police the borders; owing to Italy’s weak economy, the Fascist regime did not have the men or the means to both fight the threating partisan groups in the occupied territories and round up and deport Jews. In a correspondence between the Italian head of the occupying government in Greece, Pellegrino Ghigi, and Luca Pietromarchi, the head of the GABAP, Ghigi asks

“why should the Regio Esercito waste time, men, and materials on rounding up civilians when the Andartes were growing more dangerous by the day?”61 Italian scholar of Jewish

Studies Marcella Simoni, expresses the conviction that, had the Italians had the appropriate means (men, material, and money), the and deportation of Jews would have occurred.

60 Benito Mussolini, The Fall of Mussolini: His Own Story by Benito Mussolini, ed. Max Ascoli, trans. Frances Frenaye (New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1948), 60. 61 Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, 390. 22

When we examine why it is that so few gentile Italians protested the racial laws, we must take economics and opportunity into account. 48.5% of Italians were farmers,

21.2% were laborers, and more than half the population was illiterate.62 A mere 0.1% of

Italians were Jewish, and the greater majority of them were literate and members of the in the middle class with white-collar jobs.63 Italian Jews were also key participants in industrialization as shopkeepers, factory owners, or traders in commerce--- another reason why Mussolini ridiculed Hitler’s redemptive antisemitism until 1935.64 When the

Racial Laws expelled Italian Jews from public employment, Italian competed to take their jobs, envious of the economic luxury “most Italian Jews lived in.”65

Many of those who helped and saved Italian Jews and Jewish refugees by transporting them across borders or obtaining for them Italian or /visas did so for very hefty prices. In an interview with Anna Jona, a Jewish

Italian survivor, she describes the way in which her family obtained the necessary visas to into neutral Switzerland. “We heard we could obtain a visa clandestinely: a

Fascist official was selling visas under the counter at 500 liras for each. At the time, it was rather a high figure, but we had to leave Italy as soon as possible.”66 Under the very same logic of economic opportunism, Italian gentiles also denounced Jews to the authorities: “We know full well that there were others, who for 5000 liras did sell Jews to

62 Sarfatti, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy, 33. 63 Richard Steigmann-Gall, “Italy and the Jews.” 64 De Felice, The Jews in Fascist Italy, 6. 65 Sara Volterra, interview by Morgan Duckett, Florence, Italy, June 29, 2017. 66 Anna Jona, interview by Sergio Parussa, “Would Have Liked to Flee to Patagonia: Conversations with Anna Jona,” 19. 23

the Nazis.”67 Sara Voltara, an Italian Jewish survivor, recalled that Italian gentiles denounced Jews for a “five-kilo bag of sugar.”68 In such moments the Italian posture to antisemitism in the Fascist era could best be described as neither collaborationist nor resistant, but simply as opportunistic. Zedenko John, a foreign Jew who survived WWII in Italian internment, stated: “Everything they [Italians] do they have their own political version. Even Italian communist go to church… because Italians are flexible… they are opportunistic.”69

Wealthy Italian Jews with the appropriate economic means were able to avoid the effects of discrimination until 1942. Law 29, passed on June 2, 1939, laid out the provisions and criteria for Italian Jews to be able to keep their jobs. Known as

Professional Lists of Discriminated Jewish Professionals, Italian Jews could keep their jobs as long as they were registered on the List. Registration was accomplished through an annual fee of 100 lira, which increased to 200 lira by 1940.70 In fact, Article 10 of the

Race Law, Measures for the Defense of the Italian Race, which prohibited Jews from owning property, was limited to property with high economic value. As long as the property did not have “an estimated value above 5,000 lira” or “have a taxable value of more than twenty thousand lira,” then Italian Jews did not have to give up ownership of

67 Ema and Andrew Viterbi, interview by Alessandro Cassin, “One Family, Two Diverging Experiences in Fascist Italy.” 68 Sara Volterra, interview by Morgan Duckett, Florence, Italy, June 29, 2017. 69 Zdenko John Bergl, interview by Linda Kuzmack, Washington, DC, September 14, 2005, transcript, US Holocaust Memorial Museum: Collections, accessed September, 2017, https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/RG-50.030.0499_trs_en.pdf. 70 Anti-Jewish Laws of Fascist Italy, curated by Michele Sarfatti and Irene De Francesco, Center for Contemporary Documentation Foundation, accessed September, 2017, http://www.cdec.it/home2_2.asp?idtesto=185&idtesto1=558&son=1&figlio=877&level=2. 24

that property. Due to Italy’s weak economy, for the Jews, “having economic means often proved crucial to survival.”71

When one looks at Fascist occupational policies, particularly toward the Jews in

Greece, one finds more proof that Italians saved Jews for economic opportunism, not inherent morality. In Italian-occupied areas of Greece there is no proof of systematic

Jewish persecution until after German takeover in 1943.72 In the occupied areas of Greece controlled by the Germans, Jewish lives were of “no concern to the Italian government” unless they held economic ties with Italy, or held high positions in Greece’s commerce and finance.73 This was because Italians considered Greece to be spazio vitale for the

Italian empire; allowing the Nazis to take measures of annihilation in German zones would have caused excessive damage to Italian economic interest and prestige, as well as made Greece economically weak and hard to control after the war. Therefore, Italian authorities tried to issue economically important Jews trapped in German zones certificates of Italian nationality so that they be permitted into the Italian zone. In the end, however, the Italians were only able to prevent the deportation of about 322 Jews out of the 60,000 that were under Nazi control.

An additional economic reason why Italian authorities did not want to deport Jews into the hands of the Nazis was because Italian authorities considered the Jews a good source of forced labor. Being an economically poorer country with limited amount of supplies and men meant that every man should be considered for the war effort.

71Ema and Andrew Viterbi, interview by Alessandro Cassin, “One Family, Two Diverging Experiences in Fascist Italy.” 72 Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, 389. 73 Ibid. 25

However, Italy’s economy relied heavily on agriculture, which required a large work force of manual laborers. The assignment of all able-bodied men to the various fronts produced a serious decrease in Italy’s work force, which could not be sustained by women and children alone. Because the Racial Laws of 1938 prohibited Jews from joining the army, there was a surplus of able-bodied Jews who could perform the agricultural jobs abandoned by the men who had to enlist. The Ministry of Internal

Affairs issued a decree entitled Draft of the Jews For Labor Service, which forced both male and female Jews born between the years 1907 and 1925 into some sort of manual labor job. Deporting their newfound source of labor, for which they paid next to nothing or denied payment all together, was too economically irrational to justify.

26

V

ROMAN VS. NORDIC: AN EXAMINAITON OF ITALO-GERMAN RELAITONS

Crucial to understanding Italian action preventing the deportation of Jews is the poor relationship between Italians and Germans. The racial doctrines that Hitler subscribed to were anti-Italian in their implications. Hitler derived his racial theories from among others the political philosophy of Huston Stewart Chamberlain, who asserted that Italians were an inferior race, “the hybrid descendants of an empire whose fall was caused by an excess of racial interbreeding.”74 Italians were not considered racially pure, and were not included in the Nazi typology of Nordic superiority, consequently causing

Germans to treat Italians as racially inferior subordinates. In the opinion of the Nazi

Adolf Dresler, Italian fascism was a “Jewish movement,”75 faithless, and controlled by

Bolshevism. Nazi scholars arguing this as proof of Italian inferiority published a number of books in Germany, two of the most popular being ’s Kosher-Fascism and K. Busch’s Racial Superiority of the Germans Over the Italians.76

During WWII, the predominant Italian opinion of Germans was that the Germans were “suffering from an inferiority complex and a bitter sense of injustice” that was

74 Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, 36. 75 Ibid., 37. 76 Ibid., 76. 27

was making them act for reasons that eluded all logic.77 The assassination of

Engelbert Dollfuss in July 1934, concerned the majority of Italians that Germans were

“barbaric” and Nazism was based on “murder and killing, looting and pillaging and blackmail.”78 Italians felt themselves superior to Germans because Italian Fascism was rooted in the cultural of the . For example, part of Italian cultural was a military code of honor that prohibited and severely punished acts of violence against woman and children, which stood in stark contrast to the behavior of the .79 Because of this prestige stemming from the ideology of Roman superiority, that Italians felt themselves to be civilized humanitarians when compared to the savage and “immature”80 Germans. These feelings can be seen in Luca Pietromarchi’s diary, in which he stated, “wherever the Germans may be, they arouse hatred…. Every day brings a new abomination.”81 From Nazism’s very formation Mussolini made strenuous efforts to dissociate Fascism from Nazism as a way to prove Roman superiority over Nordicism.

The diary entry of an ordinary Italian solider, Eugenio Corti, illuminates the tensions further. In , Corti describes the Italian military experience on the

Russian front and the mistreatment they suffered from the hands of their nominal German allies. Forced to stay in the trenches all day and , the Italian soldiers only had six

77 Ronald Graham to Wellesley, letter, October 11, 1933, in Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy 1922-1945, ed. Meir Michaelis (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978), 74. 78 Ernst R., von Starhemberg, Between Hitler and Mussolini: Memoirs of Ernst Rudiger Prince Starhemberg (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1942), 169-171. 79 Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, 403. 80 Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, 59. 81 Luca Pietromarchi, diary, July 26, 1942, in Fascism’s European Empire: Italian Occupation During the Second World War, trans. Davide Rodogno (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 2006), 403. 28

bullets each, and hardly the appropriate clothing for the harshness of Russian winters.

Corti describes the Germans as “odious” and “passionless,” and reports that the Germans treated them as slaves.82 Every night, the Italian soldiers would freeze to death, while the

German soldiers positioned themselves behind the Italians with submachine guns, intending to gun down anyone who tried to abandon their position. The Germans rotated positions every few hours, enjoying the warmth of cabins into which the Italians were not allowed.

82 Eugenio Corti, “Few Returned: Twenty-Eight Days on the Russian Front: Winter 1942-1943,” December, 1942, in The Fascist Revolution in Italy: A Brief History with Documents, ed. Marla Stone, trans. Peter Levy, (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013), 159. 82 Ibid., 160. 29

VI

THE ORIGINATION OF THE MYTH

As we have seen, there was a difference between the government and the people, between institutions and individuals, between high-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers.83 Individual acts alone cannot substitute as a collective history; in order to prove the notion of brava gente to its full extent, one has to prove that the Italian political and military establishments enacted a rescue operation of the Jews solely based on humanitarian principle. Not only has this never been proven, but, as this paper has attempted to show, becomes untenable when one looks closely at the documents. It was for purposes of political and economic opportunism, prestige, and Italo-German rivalry that the Italians attempted to prevent deportation of Jews. The notion that Italians were concerned over Jewish treatment due to their humanitarian principles can simply be disproven with the fact that the Racial Laws of 1938 did not put an end to consensus for the regime. Rather, Italian Fascist ideology justified a metaphorical “social killing” of

Jews by marginalizing them and forcing upon them so that they no longer existed in the public sphere.84

One might reasonable ask at this point how the brava gente myth originated and gained near worldwide acceptance. The years following the enactment of the Racial Laws

83 Anna Jona, interview by Sergio Parussa, “Would Have Liked to Flee to Patagonia: Conversations with Anna Jona,” 19. 84 Italianization was the process in which Jews would have to convert to Christianity, choose a new last name, and remain unregistered in phonebooks until such process was completed. 30

witnessed a slow but progressive decline of the Fascist regime and its institutions. The biggest cause of this was the fact that Italy did not have an economy that could support its own war effort. The Italian people were asked to sacrifice more and more at home, while at the same time, more and more men never returned home from the various war fronts.

As the war continued to devastate families and tear apart Europe, Italians began blaming the regime and Mussolini. Ordinary soldiers, underequipped and overexposed to the horrors and chaos of WWII, lost their faith in the cause and began acting out. Signs of disobedience were influenced by opportunistic reasoning, persuading the ordinary Italian solider to break the law by helping Jews reach the Italian zones or selling Jews the necessary visas to cross into Switzerland. Corti’s account conveys the malaise and doom that increasingly surrounded the Italian solider; death was a certainty so “what difference did it make if you died a few minutes earlier or later?”85 It was in this state of despair and devastation that ordinary Italians began defying the Fascist Regime by aiding Jews.

However, this resentment to the regime is frequently overlooked, and the dubious notion of brava gente is inaccurately given credence.

By 1943, Allied forces had destroyed Mussolini’s imperial campaign in North

Africa, freed Ethiopia, and had reached Calabria in their northward push. Mussolini had been imprisoned by his own people, rescued by German forces now occupying northern

Italy, and was established as a powerless leader in charge of the puppet regime, the Salo

Republico. By this point, the Italian people had endured so much suffering that they

85 Corti, “Few Returned: Twenty-Eight Days on the Russian Front: Winter 1942-1943,” 160. 31

wanted Mussolini’s head on a plate and welcomed the Allied forces as liberators.86 Due to this welcoming and the Italian’s own alienation from their previous discriminatory practices in both Italy and their zones of occupation, Allied forces tended to regard all

Italians as innocent victims of a tyrannical regime that held no sway within the population. To prove this point, an Allied officer wrote in his diary on July 1945,

“Italians seem to want to be freed from the war, Fascism, and themselves.”87

Neglecting to recognize Italians’ previous dedication to the regime and their passivity, if not outright support, of its discriminatory actions, the Allies never conducted a postwar investigation of Italian Fascist action. This explains why there was never an

Allied effort to formally defascistize Italian society and government, as there was in

Germany.88 It also explains how the allied forces helped in formulating this myth. By holding the misconception that the Italian population rejected fascism and its ideology, they then brought those misconceptions back home with them in their stories and letters.

It was these stories that filmmakers emphasized, depicting Italians stereotypically as lovers-of-life too concerned with sensual pleasures to engage in barbarous politics. In

Italy most of the ruling class— aside from the royal family, who had to abdicate to make way for the republic— remained in power by reinforcing the myth of brava gente in their discourse and for a long time the teaching of history in their schools.89

86 Giovanna Rosenfeld, interview by Morgan Duckett, Florence, Italy, June 16, 2017. 87 Claudio Fogu, “Italiani Brava Gente: The Legacy of Fascist Historical Culture on Italian Politics and Memory,” The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe (Duke University 2006) 147. 88 After Allie victory in WWII, they started their plans to rebuild Europe by firstly rooting out all Nazi ideology and punishing all perpetrators responsible for the Shoa atrocities. This process was called denazificaiton. 89 Claudio Fogu, “Italiani Brava Gente: The Legacy of Fascist Historical Culture on Italian Politics and Memory,” The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe (Duke University 2006) 150. 32

Adding to the illusion were the Armistice-Peace Cabinet’s (GABAP) efforts to portray humanitarianism as an intrinsic element to Italian national character. Italy recognized the political necessity to distinguish itself from Germany if it wanted to establish favorable peace negotiations in the armistice agreement with Allied forces.

Propaganda dropped support for the “Jewish Question” and race theory, and contained slogans such as “The Italians have a soul, the Germans do not.”90 It labeled the Germans as “barbaric” and the Balkan populations as “primitive” in comparison to the Italians’

“Roman justice and humanity.”91 Luca Pietromarchi, the head of the GABAP, held a public audience with the Pope Pius XII at which he stated, “amid so much wickedness the

Italians have been immune to the fever… one day account would be taken of our people’s humanitarianism.” In a letter to Pietromarchi, concerned General Pieche stated, “I believe that our behavior, inspired as it is by the principles of humanity, will one day be recognized as the most opportune at the present time.”92 High-ranking civil servants like

Pietromarchi and military officers like Pieche helped build the myth of brava gente. By doing so, Italy’s prestige and reputation was preserved in a reassuring and self-acquitting collective portrait that allowed for the burial of the Fascist Regime’s history and crimes.

It should be kept in mind, as a methodological consideration, that those still alive to give testimonials today are those who managed to find “good Italians,” since the thousands of those who found “bad Italians” cannot come back to tell their stories. The

90 Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, 404. 91 Davide Rodogno, “Italiani brava gente? Fascist Italy’s Policy Toward the Jews in the Balkans, April 1941-July 1943,” European History Quarterly 35, no. 213 (2005): 216. 92 General Piéche to GABAP, “Notizie Sulla Greca e Dalla Bulgaria,” memorandum, April 1, 1943, in Fascism’s European Empire: Italian Occupation During the Second World War, ed. Davide Rodogno (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 2006), 404. 33

memories of those who survived because of Italian aid, despite the reasoning for that aid, tend to be subconsciously accommodating toward the brava gente myth, out of the immense gratitude and debt survivors feel for their Italian helpers. Even though Italian police, civilians, government officials, and soldiers engaged in discriminatory practices against Jews; even though thousands of Jews were forced from their homes into internment camps were they suffered from malnutrition and poor sanitation; even though thousands of Jews were used for forced labor; and, even though thousands of Jewish refugees and about one out of every seven Italian Jews ended up being deported into the hands of the Nazis. For all that, however, there is compelling first-hand testimony that demonstrates a realization that average Italians were not really any more upstanding than average Germans, but instead experienced a different set of circumstances that led to the right choices being made for not necessarily the right reasons.93 For these reasons, brava gente is believed and accepted.

93 Alexander Stille, Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism (New York: Summit Books, 1991), 14. 34

VII

CONCLUSIONS

The preponderance of evidence suggests that Italians who saved Jews did so as a result of the political and economically opportunistic nature of life under the Fascist regime and the growth in Italo-German rivalry. Mussolini viewed the Jews as cards in a deck that could be played in whichever way most likely to preserve the empire. The Jews were a bargaining tool with the Germans, an example of treatment and prestige to the civilians of the occupied territories, and pawns in arranging peace negotiations with the

Allies. Because the Nazi dogma of Nordic superiority excluded Italians, the Italian

Fascist regime resented and then increasingly worked against Hitler’s racial ideology.

Refusing to hand over Jews to German authorities was not really about being the

“righteous gentile,” but rather, a way to preserve Italian sovereignty and prestige through reinforcement of Roman superiority. After all, the Italian answer to the “Jewish

Question” was found in the nuovo ordine, the elimination of Jews from the public sphere.94 By transforming Jews into the pariahs of society, Fascist Italy hoped to force

Jews to emigrate elsewhere or undergo the process of Italianization. Jews did not pose a serious threat to the success of spazio vitale, and owing to Italy’s weak economy, Italian officials could not justify the extermination of free labor.95

94 Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, 373. 95 Luca Pietromarchi, diary, October 10, 1942, in Fascism’s European Empire: Italian Occupation During the Second World War, ed. Davide Rodogno (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 2006), 364. 35

That is not to say that there were no Italians who saved Jews because of their humanitarian principles and morals. Italian civilians and clerics many times paid with their lives for their efforts to save Italian and foreign Jewish refugees— even as the larger institution of the remained largely silent during the Holocaust and had for centuries promulgated anti-Jewish sentiment.96 Sara Volterra, an Italian Jewish child survivor, told a very touching story of how her grandfather was saved by a Blackshirt of the Saló Republic from an aerial bombing attack on Italy.97 Acts of selflessness certainly existed. In a study conducted by the Jewish Contemporary Documentation Center, historians tried to find the answer as to why and what type of Italian was more prone to saving Jews. After 450 videotaped interviews and examination of 20,000 documents the study concluded:

No single term can define the attitudes of non-Jewish Italians towards persecuted

Jews. Decisions to act were shaped by individuals’ circumstances, their

perceptions of the dangers involved, and their personal connections to the Jews in

question. It is clear from our research that, when faced with the human

consequences of the Shoah, individuals decided for themselves how to behave

toward the Jews they encountered.

Much like individual gentile Germans who seemed to act selflessly to help Jews depending on their inclination and ability, individual Italians could behave the same way.

This study does not ignore their valiant behavior, but rather seeks to show that the

96 Susan Zuccotti, : The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 251-263. 97 “Blackshirt” is the name given to a member in the Italian Fascist squadristi known as the Voluntary Militia for National Security. 36

collective notion of the brava gente, that such acts typified Italians, is a myth. Projecting the actions of those individuals who helped into a larger humanitarianism allegedly inherent in the Italian national character is not viable. Nor can individual action serve as proof that being Italian meant immunity from antisemitism and racial hatred. Rather, this study has worked to unmask the façade of the brava gente myth, a cultural revisionist narrative that distorts the responsibilities and history of Italian Fascism during the Shoah.

This uncovering of harsher realities beneath the nostalgic façade of brava gente accomplishes the dual goals of restoring truth to the historical account and disassembling stereotypes based on notions of national character— especially ones that seem positive.

37

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