Project Education of | History Roma Children Council Conseil of de l´Europe in Europe The Nazi Period 5.2 in The Nazi Period in Italy Giovanna Boursier

The Race Question | From Theory to Practice | Internment | The Camp | After the Armistice

In Italy the victims of the also included the Roma. Today, whilst historical investigation of the subject is only just beginning and has to contend with over half a of more or less deliberate neglect and “memory lapses”, we can say with certainty that the Roma were tracked down, put on file and imprisoned by the fascist government of the time. Those interned endured cold, hunger and disease which in some cases resulted in their deaths.

Introduction 1 gothic line (1945) 1 OCCUPIED TERRITO- In Italy research on the persecution RIES BY THE REICH (SEPTEMBER 1943) and internment of the Roma remains gustav line (1944) very thin on the ground – especially academic research – and there has been little study of internment in a country, which is reluctant to acknowledge its Italian Roma camps complicity with the Nazis and conse- or camps with roma A p e n n i n e quently its shared responsibility for internees the policy of extermination. Ill. 1 (based upon Boursier 1999, p. 24) A b r u z z i For this same reason, there are Tremiti many gaps in facts and figures on the Tossicia Islands fascist persecution of the Roma in Italy, Campobasso Agnona and it is only now, thanks to the tenaci- not definitely be categorised as part of Boiano ty of a few historians and researchers, a racist policy on the part of the re- that this forgotten story is starting to gime, aimed, like Hitler‘s, at actually be told. Unfortunately, figures on the exterminating the groups in question, Perdasdefogu number of victims are not yet known. the fact remains that the Roma were () Nor is it possible as yet to be clear on always discriminated against, singled the reasons for the persecution. But out and persecuted as “zingari” (“Gyp- Ferramonti we have to appreciate that even if the sies”). And that definitely means so- fascist persecution of the Roma can- mething.

by a policy of imperialistic domination September, the racial laws against the The race question which also drew on racist theory and Jews were approved, a clear reflection practice. of the regime’s violently anti-Semitic In 1938 revealed the policy. On October 28, 1922, the fascist full violence and ugliness of its racist In terms of the law, at least, the marched on and, the face, particularly against the Jews. The Roma do not seem to have been included next day, King Victor-Emmanuel III Race Manifesto was published in July, in the regime’s racial policies. For that asked to form a new spelling out the “differences” between reason it has always been denied that government. This ushered in the period the human races in clear terms, and this they were racially discriminated against of fascist dictatorship, characterised by was soon followed by the establishment in Italy. But they were, right from the the elimination – including physical eli- of the Department for and outset, targeted by policies on law and mination – of all opposition groups and Race and the Race Tribunal. Then, in order. Italy too had a “Gypsy problem” The Race Question From Theory to Practice Internment The Camp After the Armistice

Types of internment

Roma prisoners were of course subject to the general rules of internment in Italy, which con- sisted of two types of procedures: internment in “concentration camps” and compulsory resi- dence in a designated locality (they had to stay within that locality and were not allowed to lea- ve it). The two types of internment were prac- tised almost exclusively in remote areas and Ill. 2 (Detail) small villages, in harsh living conditions where The ministerial internment order of September 11, 1940: prisoners were subject to an endless number of strict and often cruel rules for their control and ”… due to the fact that they sometimes commit serious crimes because of their innate supervision. The Ministry of Interior ordered nature and methods of organisation and due to the possibility that among them there that the camps were to be established in dere- are elements capable of carrying out anti-national activities, it is indispensable that all lict or rarely used buildings, far from strategi- Gypsies are controlled … It is ordered that those of Italian nationality, either confirmed cally important centres and wherever possible or presumed, who are still in circulation are to be rounded up as quickly as possible in remote areas. Most of the camps were in the and concentrated under vigorous surveillance in a suitable locality in every province … regions of central Italy, particularly in the cen- apart from the more dangerous or suspicious elements who are to be sent to the islands tral Apennine valley and the Abruzzi. or regions…” Ill. 3 (excerpted from Boursier 1999, p. 18)

which, as we shall see, took shape from orising on the supposed “Gypsy threat” Culture. Landra, like others before and 1926 onwards and became increasingly of the time, including the ideas of lea- after him, made the issue an unequivo- prominent after the outbreak of war. ding architects of fascist racial policy, cally racial one, not least by reference In any event, in recent years the like Guido Landra, head of the Office of to appraisals of the physical and moral archives have displayed much of the the- Racial Studies at the Ministry of Popular attributes of the “Gypsy race”. [Ill. 5]

at Ferramonti, in , or the fact by virtue of the characteristic Gypsy From theory to practice that some Italian Roma were sent to lifestyle”. The aim was to “strike at the Austria and Germany. In oral accounts very heart of the Gypsy organism.” survivors often recalled their places of On September 11, 1940, an ac- Most of those who have studied the imprisonment such as Agnona (in Moli- tual internment order was issued which question of the fascist persecution of se), Tossicia (in the Abbruzzi), the Tre- applied to , too. This was a the Roma have not yet drawn on ar- miti Islands and Sardinia. [Ill. 4] circular from the Ministry of Interi- chive material, but have often based The fascists’ views are alrea- or to all prefectures, instructing them their research on scattered documents dy apparent in 1926, when a circular to round up “Gypsies” and hold them and oral testimonies collected over ordered the expulsion of all “foreign throughout the country “under strict time. Those documents have neverthe- Gypsies” from the kingdom in order supervision in the most appropriate lo- less provided a number of interesting to “cleanse the country of Gypsy cara- cation in each province”. It acted with facts, such as the detention of Roma in vans which, needless to recall, consti- great zeal to imprison the “Gypsies”. the biggest Italian concentration camp tute a risk to safety and public health [Ill. 2]

with no one doing anything about them. wicker baskets or embroidered cloths, Internment These are important testimonies which trying to live their lives despite being allow us to piece together the stories of hampered on all sides by rules and re- some Roma between the years 1928 to gulations which ultimately dragged them The identity of those arrested also 1943. The accounts describe the expe- into the tragedy of World War II. emerges from documents preserved in riences of men, women and children, iti- All of them, even those claiming the archives, particularly personal files, nerant market traders, horse breeders or to be Italian at the time of their arrest, dozens of which were left in the records coppersmiths, travelling around selling were expelled, re-arrested, and expelled

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The Nazi Period 5.2 in Italy

In Italian camps – reminiscences from Roma In Italian camps – One day, I don’t know how, a chicken found guards around, like a prison… we spent near- Rosa Raidic:r em“Myin daughteriscences Lalla f wasrom born Roma in Sardinia on 7its Ja way- into the camp. I fell on it like a fox, ly two years there. My eldest son died in the nuary 1943, because we were in a concentration camp therekilled at it and ate it raw, I was so hungry. They camp. He painted well and was a bright lad.” the time”. Rosa Raidic: “My daughter Lalla was born in beat me and locked me up for six months for Antonio Hudorovic: “Once, whilst we were Mitzi Herzemberg:Sardinia “During on 7 January the war 1943, we becausewere in wea concentration were stealing.” at Tossicia, a German officer came. He took camp at Perdasdefoguin a concentration in Sardinia. camp there Everyone at the time”. was desperatelyZlato Levak: “In Italy we were in a concentra- our body measurements, even measuring our hungry. OneMitzi day, Herzemberg:I don‘t know “Duringhow, a chicken the war found we wereits way tioninto camp, with virtually nothing to eat. I was heads. He said it was for new clothes and a the camp. I infell a on concentration it like a fox, camp killed at it Perdasdefoguand ate it raw, in I wasnear so Campobasso, with my family. There were hat.” Sardinia. Everyone was desperately hungry. a lot of us… in a convent, all closed in, with Ill. 4

Ill. 5 “Gypsy family” photographs from an article by Guido Landra. The photographs should “prove” the “inferiority” of the “Gypsies”. (from Boursier 1999, p. 16)

again, in the period 1928 to 1940. After intervals. In phase two, between 1940 and Agnona et Tossicia, they formed a clear 1940, arrest was followed by internment, 1943 (we do not yet know enough about majority. under the directive of the Ministry of In- the period after 1943), the policy of ex- There was at least one case of a terior from . [Ill. 3] pulsion was replaced by internment. transfer of Roma to Germany. This con- Measures taken by the fascist re- Details of the reality of imprison- cerned the Levakovich family, father, gime against the Roma can be divided into ment and of the premises in which the mother and eight children, who were at least two phases. In phase one, prior Roma were held have gradually emer- transported to the German Reich in early to September 1940, people arrested were ged. At this stage it seems that in some 1944 after six years of “free internment” expelled from the kingdom and dumped of them, such as the Tremiti Islands, (compulsory residence) in the town of at the border, so that as a rule they came Sardinia and others, the Roma were only Ravenna. It is, however, not possible to back across the border almost immedia- one of several “categories” held there, find out more about this case from the tely, a procedure which was repeated at but in other camps, particularly Boiano, documents available.

of 850 metres. Here the records not toms”. Unfortunately is not possible only show that Roma and Sinti were to get to find out more about the va- the camp held in the camp; they also suggest that riations in prisoner numbers, and the after late 1941 the camp was used ex- reasons for them, until the camp lists At Boiano, in Molise, prisoners were clusively for them. In there are recovered and studied. But there housed in the five sheds of an old tobac- were 250 of them in the camp and in are personal testimonies, like that of co factory, in conditions so inhumane that January 1943, the authorities actually Tommaso Bogdan, a Rom now living even the fascists sought to move them to opened a school for Roma children or, in Rome, who remembers his two brot- other premises. However, not the Roma more specifically, “for the intellectu- hers starving to death in Agnona and and Sinti, who were only moved when the al and religious instruction of minor his parents who did not survive their camp closed down in . At that children of Gypsies interned there”. A escape from the camp. stage there were 65 Roma (many Sinti), document dated April 23, 1943, records The camp at Tossicia was ope- 21 of them under the age of 15. [Ill. 1] the presence of 146 “Gypsy” internees rational from and was From Boiano they went to Ag- and insists that everything is procee- closed down after the armistice. The nona, another village in Molise where ding well, including the school which prisoners there included Roma and Sin- the camp was in a former Benedictine is concerned with “weaning them away ti. We have at least two lists which show convent above the village at an altitude from their vagabond and amoral cus- that at least 108 of them were there in

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5.2 The NaziThe Period Nazi Period 5.2 4 / 4 in Italyin Italy

Ill. 6 On the basis of the condi- tions of the Armistice of September 8, 1943, signed between Italy and the Allies, many camps in were closed. Roma then fled, spreading out over the moun- tains, in some cases joining up with the partisans. This photograph, in possession of the Rom Amilcare Debar, shows his partisan group, the 48th Garibaldi Brigade, in 1944. (from Boursier 1999, p. 29)

July 1942. Tossicia, in the Abruzzi, ded together in the buildings, and the buildings had no windows, there was was one of the worst of the camps in Roma were housed in the Mirti barrack no water, and the sewers constantly central Italy. The internees lived crow- where conditions were intolerable: the overflowed.

troops, whilst the anti-fascist forces or- Italy takes responsibility for the trans- After the armistice ganised the Resistance. [Ill. 6] portation and subsequent elimination of There is very little information Roma and Sinti in Hitler’s death camps. on what happened to the Roma and Sinti We should at least mention the testimo- After the Allied landings in and during the time of the German occupa- ny of one woman who survived the camp the defeat of fascism, Italy signed the tion and the Social , and even at (the transit point for deporta- armistice with the Allies on Septem- less on what happened to those already tion to the Reich) and who remembers ber 8, 1943, and the country descended on record as interned when the armistice “Italian Gypsy children” living with into chaos. The Royal Family and the was signed. We know that some prisoners their mothers in the one hut set aside government fled ignominiously south, managed to flee the camps and joined up exclusively for women. And that of Vit- the Germans occupied part of the coun- with the partisans and the Resistance. torio Mayer, a Sinto who remembers his try and Mussolini formed a new fas- But in other cases prisoners remained sister Edvige, dead at 20 in the camp at cist government in Northern Italy, the in the camps, many of which then came Bolzano: “That filthy war! In my mind’s Social Republic of Salò. The country under Nazi control. For this reason it is eye I still see my sister, trapped there be- was fragmented and overrun by foreign appropriate to consider to which extent hind the barbed wire.”

Bibliography

Boursier, Giovanna (1999) Gypsies in Italy during the Fascist dictatorship and the Second World War. In: Kenrick, Donald (ed.) In the shadow of the Swastika. The Gypsies during the Second World War 2. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, pp. 13-36 | Boursier, G. / Converso, M. / Iacomini, F. (1996) Zigeuner. Lo sterminio dimenticato. Roma: Sinnos | Fings, K. / Heuss, H. / Sparing, F. (1997) From “Race Science” to the Camps. The Gypsies during the Second World War 1. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press | Levakovich, Giuseppe / Ausenda, Giorgio (1975) Tzigari. Vita di un nomade. Milano: Bompiani | Piasere, Leonardo (ed.) (1996-1999) Italia Romanì. Vols. 1 and 2. Roma: CISU | Viaggio, Giorgio (1997) Storia degli zingari in Italia. Roma: Anicia

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