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Marie Chantal Marauta April 12, 2019 Advisor: Professor Holly Case DUS: Professor Naoko Shibusawa

Understanding the Myth of the “Good Italian” Origins, contestations and trajectories

ABSTRACT

The notion of the “Good Italian” has been ingrained in national historical narrative and has thus constructed popular notions of what it means to be “Italian” both domestically and internationally. Films like Rome, Open City (1945) and Life Is Beautiful (1997) demonstrate the idea that for the most part, Italians were a benevolent people who aided persecuted populations during the war, and the popularity of these mass mediums has heavily propagated this perspective. Moreover, Italian high school curriculums are more focused on the atrocities of the Nazis during the Second World War (WWII), and there is little education about the Italian army’s extreme brutality in their occupied territories (namely, Yugoslavia and certain regions in Africa). Consequently, this paper argues that this widespread notion of the universality of the “Good Italian” is extremely problematic and does not capture the complex nature of the Italian army’s role (and the complicity of the Italian population) during WWII. This thesis highlights the problematic nature of this notion through a comparison and contrast between popular media and political images of the “Good Italian,” and the brutal actions of General Mario Roatta and his soldiers in Italian-occupied territories in Croatia that present a contrast to the universality of this myth. When exploring Roatta, as well as Italian responsibility for war crimes, this essay primarily uses two (relatively) recently published texts: Laura Bordoni’s Il Caso Roatta (2017) and Alessandra Kersevan’s Lager Italiani: Pulizia Etnica E Campi Di Concentramento Fascisti per Civili Jugoslavi 1941-1943 (2008). Overall, this thesis argues that: a) this myth was propagated by postwar national mass media and politics in order to create cohesion and national unity in a fragmented and socio-economically unstable state; b) this myth has become ingrained in national identity, and it’s universality rarely questioned in popular culture and secondary education, and c) the lack of accountability for Italian responsibility for, or complicity in the development of, war crimes has resulted in a lack of social and political consciousness of the dangers of extreme racism and discrimination.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... 1

Introduction ...... 3

Italiani, brava gente ...... 7 Origins of the narrative ...... 7 Glorification of Partisans and a “Second Risorgimento” ...... 11 The Influence of the Left ...... 14 The “Good Italian” in Popular Media ...... 18 The “Good Italian” in Popular Novels and Poetry ...... 21 The “Good Italian” in Politics and Journalism ...... 24 Case Study: Mario Roatta ...... 27

Mario Roatta and the Italian Occupation of Yugoslavia ...... 29 Background and Overview ...... 29 Roatta as a push back against the “Good Italian” ...... 33 Roatta’s Diaries, 6 September-31 December 1943 ...... 33 Roatta’s “Otto Milioni di Baionette” ...... 34 Roatta’s Defense ...... 37 Evidence Against Roatta’s Claims ...... 40 Concentration Camps and the Dilemma of Documentation ...... 44 So what? Mussolini and the Rise of the Extreme Right Today ...... 46

Conclusion ...... 54

Works Cited ...... 56

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Introduction

I have taken numerous classes on the Second World War (WWII) throughout my academic career, from secondary school to college and at schools in Italy, the United Arab

Emirates, the Philippines, the United States and England. When taking a myriad of classes on the subject, I have often found myself wondering why school curriculums’ focus on guilt for war crimes has been studied in the German and Japanese contexts but rarely in the Italian one.

After all, the Axis powers of the 20th Century consisted of Germany, Japan and Italy, yet while both Germany and Japan have been scrutinized for their role in committing war crimes on an international stage,1 Italy’s role in mass brutality has largely been ignored in popular discourse.2 I decided I wanted to further look into historiography surrounding Italian involvement in the war, and understand whether there was a larger story that was not being widely told. In my research, I came across the efforts of numerous historians who have attempted to bring to light a darker side of Italy’s wartime involvement. Such historians include: Pavia University’s Laura Bordoni, who explored the U.S. government’s mild stance towards prosecuting Italian war criminals;3 Alessandra Kersevan, who wrote extensively about

Italian concentration camps in their occupied territories; Gianni Oliva, renown leftist politician who has criticized international post-war treatment of Italian war criminals; and numerous others whose work will be used later on in this analysis. In other words, despite the vast range of historiography regarding the Italian army’s brutality during WWII, the Italian high school curriculum glosses over the history of Italian mass brutality in occupied territories. As a result, unlike Germany, Italy has never acknowledged the extent of the racism and xenophobia inherent in socio-political thought towards the populations they invaded.

1 Buruma, Ian. "War Guilt, and the Difference Between Germany and Japan." The New York Times, December 29, 1998, https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/29/opinion/war-guilt-and-the-difference-between-germany-and- japan.html. 2 Rory Carroll, "Italian Atrocities in World War Two," The Guardian, June 25, 2001, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jun/25/artsandhumanities.highereducation. 3 Laura Bordoni, Il Caso Roatta (Odradek, 2017), 31. Marauta 4

The sanitization of Italy’s role in WWII has permeated national historical narratives and popular media, as is seen through box-office hits like Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open

City (1945), Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful (1997) and John Madden’s Captain Corelli’s

Mandolin (2001). Instead of exploring narratives about Italian occupation and war crimes committed during the war, Italian academic and popular national history has focused on the military’s successes in taking over territories in Croatia and Austria, without significant analysis of the methods behind these invasions. It is true that the Italian army committed a much smaller number of war crimes as compared to Germany, but in Eastern Europe alone, the

Italian occupying army exterminated nearly 2,050 Yugoslavians (and this is a recorded number, not counting the unrecorded death rate amongst the thousands sent to concentration camps), both due to the horrifying conditions and grueling labor at concentration camps and because of mass murders committed at Yugoslavian villages that the army marched through.4

This is a story that needs to be further explored and understood on a larger scale, and the smaller number of individuals affected does not justify this national narrative being swept under the rug.

Some historiography concerning Italian war crimes has come in the speeches and works of prominent politicians such as Gianni Oliva (Communist party member until it’s dissolution in 1991 and current participant in the Democratic Party of the Left) and Matteo Salvini (current

Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Lega Nord), as will be explored in the individual analyses of various texts in the next section. Certain extreme right-wing individuals have gone so far as to praise Mussolini for his iron fist and clear policies, while accusing “leftists” of falsely claiming that the Italian army was responsible for atrocities as brutal as those of the

Nazis.5 It is important to take into account the analyses and claims of historians, politicians,

4 Alessandra Kersevan, Lager Italiani: Pulizia Etnica E Campi Di Concentramento Fascisti per Civili Jugoslavi 1941-1943 (Roma: Nutrimenti, 2008), 78. 5 John Hooper, "Mussolini Wasn't That Bad, Says Berlusconi," The Guardian, September 12, 2003, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/sep/12/italy.pressandpublishing. Marauta 5 and mass media narratives that argue for either side of the debate (whether the generalization of the narrative of the “Good Italian” is problematic and should be questioned) with an objective lens in order to prevent falling into the trap of believing a single mainstream narrative.

But what is this mainstream narrative?

The notion of the “Good Italian” is one that has long characterized Italian national identity. Italian romance, Christianity and approachability have been put at the forefront of narratives of “Italianness,” and postwar popular narratives portray that this attitude held fast amongst Italian citizens and soldiers even during wartime. The actions of individuals like

General Mario Roatta (responsible for Italian military invasion of Croatia) and his men, who killed and/or deported to concentration camps tens of thousands of people from occupied

Yugoslav territories between 1941 and 1943,6 were portrayed by popular postwar narratives as an anomaly. It was only Mussolini and “henchmen” like Roatta who were responsible for war crimes and Fascist brutality, while the rest of the Italian population were innocent and unwilling bystanders.

After realizing the extent to which, growing up, national academic discourse and period dramas have favored the image of the “Good Italian” over studying a balanced narrative, I began to wonder about this “myth,” its historical origins, development, and current significance to national identity and politics. What led to the creation of the myth of the “Good Italian”?

How was the myth created during the period of postwar social and economic reconstruction, how did it cover up Italian responsibility for war crimes, and how did it come to be spread on a mass scale? How did it create national historical amnesia, and how does it continue to factor into Italian national identity? Lastly, how has the creation of this myth had a lasting impact on contemporary politics, especially regarding the justification of right-wing extremism and xenophobia? This thesis will combine an analysis of the creation of the myth of the “Good

6 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 78. Marauta 6

Italian” in popular culture and politics with historiography surrounding Italy’s responsibility for war crimes during WWII, in order to add nuance to a generalized national narrative.

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Italiani, brava gente

Origins of the narrative

The roots of the myth of the “good Italian” can be traced back to one of Italy’s most famous and celebrated authors – Alessandro Manzoni. His most prominent novel, The

Betrothed (1827), follows the story of two Italian villagers, Renzo and Lucia, in their quest to get married despite the best efforts of a Spanish-controlled elite nobleman’s efforts to stop the wedding and sleep with Lucia.7 Historian and New York University Research Fellow Rosario

Forlenza’s analysis evidenced that through Renzo and Lucia’s narrative, as well as the story’s various secondary characters and side storylines, Manzoni presents themes of rebellion against a malevolent and tyrannical foreign rule (Spain and then Austria), individual and collective renaissance, and personal virtue and perseverance in the face of oppression from the outside.8

Upon the unification of Italy in 1871, The Betrothed became one of the baseline texts that determined national identity and established the Italian people as courageous, “good,” and virtuous.9 Manzoni’s text has been incorporated into the school system and lauded by influential leaders as a template for Italian character and national values, the most recent of which was Pope Francis in a 2015 address at St. Peter’s Square.10 The Betrothed was at the root of the country’s Risorgimento (renaissance), wherein various states were put together to form the Kingdom of Italy, and the novel’s narrative of unity and resistance to tyranny, as well as an unwavering dedication to the Christian faith, have been primary aspects of Italian identity ever since.11 The “good Italian” was not a myth at it’s very creation, but instead a template of

7 Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (Milano: Mondadori, 2002). 8 Rosario Forlenza, "Sacrificial Memory and Political Legitimacy in Postwar Italy: Reliving and Remembering World War II," History and Memory 24, no. 2 (2012): 97. 9 Heather R. Sottong, "The Crowd and Manzoni’s Conception of Cultural Unification." Carte Italiane 2, no. 8 (2012): 37. 10 "Pope Francis: Engagement Is a Time of Preparation - Not to Be Rushed," Independent Catholic News, May 28, 2015, https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/27550. 11 Forlenza, "Sacrificial Memory and Political Legitimacy in Postwar Italy,” 97. Marauta 8 character that could form a sense of unity and belonging amongst a set of people of different cultures and dialects coming together for the first time under a single flag.

Just over seventy years later, at the end of WWII, this same narrative was resurrected in order to unify a nation that had once more fallen into social, political and economic chaos.

University of Padua historian Filippo Focardi outlined a number of factors that have contributed to the consolidation and propagation of the myth of the “Good Italian,” and the creation of a novel national identity post-WWII. First, the ruling government which was an amalgamation of the crown, Marshal Pietro Badoglio, and the National Liberation Committee

(the umbrella organization comprised of anti-Fascist political parties, with the liberals and the communists – the PCI – at its forefront), held a strong desire to “legitimize” Italy, socially and politically, on a global stage.12 Following Mussolini’s fall in July 1943 and the subsequent disintegration of Italian Fascism, the new government sought to present a stark contrast between the “evil” Germans and the “good” Italians, the latter of whom had been ‘unwilling participants’ in Mussolini’s war and ‘victims’ of a barbaric, Nazi-controlled Fascism.13 Focardi evidenced that by establishing a novel narrative of Italian participation in WWII, the new government would not only achieve “legitimacy” but would also be able to safeguard national interests that would otherwise be endangered by a castigatory peace agreement with the

Allies.14 Furthermore, by going against the Nazi puppet state of Salò (at the head of which

Mussolini still stood), the new government placed Italy in line with the Allies and secured themselves a place in what was to become a “legitimate” political order.15 This endeavor to distance Italy from Mussolini and Germany aligned with the Allied powers’ determination to spread anti-German sentiment amongst a formerly Axis state.16 Propaganda in the form of

12 Filippo Focardi, "Italy’s Amnesia over War Guilt: The "Evil Germans" Alibi," Mediterranean Quarterly 25, no. 4 (2014): 9-10. 13 Focardi, 9. 14 Focardi, 10. 15 Focardi, 7-10. 16 "Interview with Luigi Marauta," telephone interview by author, October 11, 2018. Marauta 9 flyers distributed over the peninsula by Allied planes, as well as broadcasts on the Voice of

America, Radio London and Radio Moscow, ensured that the anti-German message was spread to a mass audience. The dissemination of said narratives was made even more efficient by the fact that a growing number of Italians listened to “enemy” radio stations, and considered news from the likes of Radio London more reliable than Fascist radio.17 As a result, the general

Italian public came to believe in the narrative that Fascism and Italian involvement in a lost war were the sole responsibility of Mussolini and his select number of “henchmen,” and that thus Italians were generally innocent, reluctant and merely victims of a bloodthirsty, tyrannical,

Nazi-controlled regime.18 This idea of Italy being a ‘victim’ would come to play a key part in

Italian postwar political narrative, and between 1943 and 1947 at the forefront of the creation of the Republic, anti-Fascist parties - namely Catholics, socialists, communists, and liberals - would establish Italians as the “victims” of Fascism.19

In 1984, Italian historian and professor Luisa Passerini published Fascism in Popular

Memory, a book that compiled and analyzed interviews of members of the Turin working class who had lived through the war. In this text, Passerini handled a range of themes, from understanding the legacy of Mussolini and Fascism to portraying how the Italian working class

(whether Fascist or not) placed themselves within the wider historical narrative of Fascism and the war. Through various interviews, Passerini observed that many individuals interviewed engaged in the “reconstruction and reshaping of events according to hindsight.”20 The fall of

Fascism gave individuals a “[theological] tendency” to generalize and villainize the Fascists, and the narratives of “having always been” with regards to themselves pushed forth the notion that though individuals were supportive of Mussolini’s Fascism, they did so reluctantly as their

17 Focardi, "Italy’s Amnesia over War Guilt,” 11. 18 Focardi, 11. 19 Forlenza, "Sacrificial Memory and Political Legitimacy in Postwar Italy,” 74. 20 Luisa Passerini, Fascism in Popular Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 107. Marauta 10

“Italian” inherent goodness and Christianity was their principal characteristic all along.21

Martino, for example, was a man who became a Fascist at the age of six after witnessing the brutal way Communists mistreated his female school teacher.22 Through his words, it is evident that Martino considered himself a serious and dedicated Fascist, yet in hindsight he recollected that Mussolini “had particulars that [he] didn’t like,” such as his “ragged trousers” and the fact that he was a “traitor…of Socialism.”23 As a result of these “particulars,” Martino “didn’t view

[Mussolini] in a good light when he came to power,” and he only joined the National Fascist

Party in 1933 (over ten years after Mussolini’s rise).24 Thus, Martino evidenced the way

Mussolini and his ‘brand’ of Fascism were pushed away from Italian identity. This anecdote is just one example of many in which common Italians, even those who openly supported Fascist ideology, look back and try to absolve themselves of fault and complicity in Mussolini’s shameful regime.

A large part of the narrative created by the postwar government involved a mirroring of Italy’s 19th Century Risorgimento, a concept heavily scrutinized by Forlenza. The efforts of the Italian Resistance – a large part of which constituted of the partisans who fought against the Nazis – were put at the forefront of Italian involvement in WWII, even though they only formed a small section of the Italian population.25 Forlenza explored how the Second

Risorgimento (as the efforts of the Resistance were later labeled), however, portrayed the image of a patriotic battle of liberation universally maintained by the Italian population who supported soldiers and partisans in the crusade to overthrow Nazism and Fascism.26 The

“rebirth” of a politically fragmented country brought together varying “democratic” parties under a single banner of anti-Fascism, and imagery of a Second Risorgimento sought to

21 Passerini, 107. 22 Passerini, 107. 23 Passerini, 108. 24 Passerini, 108. 25 Forlenza, "Sacrificial Memory and Political Legitimacy in Postwar Italy,” 84. 26 Forlenza, 74. Marauta 11 disseminate feelings of grandeur, unity and national pride reminiscent of Italy’s unification.27

By distancing the Italian population from Mussolini and Fascism, dismissing internal political divides, and building a new national narrative that alluded to Italians’ inherent “goodness” and bravery, the postwar government could create the image of a better and brighter future for a country angered by their embarrassing defeat.28 Local figures of authority or celebrity (the

Church, lawyers, filmmakers, philosophers and landowners, to name a few) became the

“intermediaries” between Italian communities and external powers, and had control over how others viewed the nation as well as over how the nation viewed itself.29 One of the most notable ways they established and disseminated the narrative of “Good Italian vs. Evil German” was through public communiques, film, poetry, and the selective publishing of wartime documents highlighting the plans and/or achievements of Italians complicit in the rescuing of Jews and

Eastern Europeans fleeing Nazi persecution. These texts will be further explored later on, but at the present moment it is sufficient to keep in mind that it was these influential political, religious and cultural authorities that were responsible for the extensive dissemination of the narrative of the “Good Italian.”

Glorification of Partisans and a “Second Risorgimento”

Returning to the topic of the glorification of partisan actions, historians and individuals in recent years have critiqued the problematic nature of putting the entire nation’s desires and actions under the legacy of a single group. One such individual is a former partisan, Vitaliano

Peduzzi, who introduced the 1995 book Ho Il Cuore Buono, a compilation of letters written by

Italian partisans before their execution by Nazi soldiers. Published in Milan in 1995, Ho Il

Cuore Buono added to the nation’s heightened focus on the glorification of partisan efforts in

27 Forlenza, 96. 28 Forlenza, 97. 29 Forlenza, 87. Marauta 12 popular media. However, Peduzzi added a nuanced aspect to this narrative. In his introduction,

Peduzzi critiqued the glorification of the partigiani, and stated that the tributes paid them through official government celebrations are a result of a postwar political agenda to

“monopolize” the Italian WWII narrative, making it seem as though the Resistance constituted the majority of Italians and thus erasing the country’s Fascist past.30 Liberation Day

(Anniversario della liberazione dell’Italia) is celebrated on the 25th of April every year, and commemorates the day the Nazi occupation ended and the Italian Resistance emerged victorious.31 Moreover, in various cities around the country, from Bologna to Arcevia, there are partisan monuments dedicated to the Resistance, in order to ensure that future generations understand and remember the sacrifices these fighters made for their country.32 As a result, the creation and perpetuation of the notion of the “Good Italian” can be observed as a way of commemorating the sacrifice of the Resistance, and as a reminder of the goodness and bravery of this small group of fighters.

Here, we will take a brief look at the letters of Italian partigiani who were captured and put to death by Nazi soldiers, in order to better understand the narrative pushed forth to reinforce the narrative of the “Good Italian.” Ho Il Cuore Buono was published over 50 years after the war by a renown Milanese publishing house, demonstrating the constant relevance and celebration of the partisan effort. In a translated excerpt of partigiano Michele Morsero’s last letter to his wife Nella from April 30, 1945, Morsero reassured her that he would “hold

[her] tight to [his] heart in an embrace of boundless love,” and that his “Christian faith” that

“has always supported [him] and pushed [him] to work with righteousness, energy and courage” would help him do so.33 Another letter, this time written by a female partigiana

30 Ho Il Cuore Buono: lettere di condannati a norte della Resistenza e della Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Milan: Maurizio Minchella Editore, 1995), XV. 31 Forlenza, "Sacrificial Memory and Political Legitimacy in Postwar Italy,” 82. 32 "Arcevia," Wikimedia Commons, accessed March 20, 2019, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Arcevia. 33 Ho Il Cuore Buono, 202. Marauta 13

Adelina Conti Magnaldi to her children in May 1945, presents the heartbreaking words of a mother telling her children to trust in God’s plan, and asking them to “pray for her” as she will as she will do the same from “up there.”34 These heartbreaking narratives present themes of

Christianity, and an unwavering faith that pushes individuals to act ‘righteously’ in the name of both God and those they love. Letters like these are further examples of the basis of the narrative that being “Italian” is synonymous with being “good” and “Christian.” Of course, these were the words of individuals facing their death, and thus their love and their unwavering faith are expected contents. Nevertheless, the fact that these select words and narratives continue to be perpetuated on a popular scale demonstrate that it is this sentimental and quasi- romantic side of the partisan effort that is deemed important.

This one-sided and romantic lens towards Italian involvement in the war is a common aspect of Italian period dramas of the late 20th Century-onwards. However, before an exploration of mass media texts, it is important to re-construct the way we approach this narrative. Though the “Good Italian” is referred to as a myth, I argue that it is kinder to refer to the notion of the “Good Italian” as a narrative. After all, even though the partisan effort constituted a small fraction of the Italian population, their fight for independence and their willingness to give up their lives for their country must nonetheless be lauded and remembered.

Thus, it is not that the “Good Italian” is a myth in the very sense of the word. According to the

Merriam-Webster dictionary, a “myth” can be defined as “an unfounded or false notion.”35 The efforts of the Resistance were not false, but they were unjustly attributed to a wider section of society than was actually involved in the battle against Nazism and Fascism. Consequently, it is not the existence of the “Good Italian” that should be critiqued, but the universality of the narrative’s application in postwar national narrative.

34 Ho Il Cuore Buono, 155. 35 "Myth," Merriam-Webster, accessed March 18, 2019, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/myth. Marauta 14

In addition to this, the notion that the partisans’ effort was fully supported by the entirety of the Italian population must also be critiqued. Italian-born and German-educated historian Andrea Varriale stated that during the war, many citizens saw a significant problem with partisan actions that were thought to be imprudent, foolish and a senseless waste of lives.

The rise of partisan groups resulted in the Nazi killings of civilians as a warning to anyone who wanted to join the partisan cause. One such instance occurred in Marzabotto, a town near

Bologna, where Nazi-Fascist soldiers killed 770 civilians in response to the attacks of a local group of partisans between September and October of 1944.36 Another such instance happened in August 1944 in S. Anna di Stazzema, a village near Lucca in Tuscany, where 560 people – most of whom were women and children – were killed by Nazi soldiers after a large number of adult males escaped the city to the mountain in order to avoid being found in the Nazis’ search for men involved in the partisan effort.37 As a result, many civilians did not support partisan efforts against the Nazis and Fascists for fear that such efforts resulted in brutal retaliation from Nazi and Fascist troops. There were significant conflicts between partisans and civilians, the latter of whom preferred to wait for the Allies to liberate them instead of putting innocent women and children in danger.38 As a result, though the postwar narrative put forth the image of a Second Risorgimento led by the partisans and supported by the entire nation, the actuality of the situation was far more complex.

The Influence of the Left

As was stated previously, the PCI played a significant role in the National Liberation

Front, as well as the postwar government. The party and its leaders’ efforts contributed significantly to the creation and dissemination of the narrative of the “Good Italian.” In June

36 Andrea Varriale, “The myth of the Italian Resistance Movement (1943-1945): The Case of Naples,” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 27, no. 2 (2014): 386. 37 Varriale, 386. 38 Varriale, 386. Marauta 15

1946, Palmiro Togliatti, who was both Minister of Justice and the leader of the Communist

Party, “issued a general amnesty for fascist crimes, in the name of national concord and with the intention of integrating the fascist rank and file into a democratic and Republican Italy.”39

This was done publicly as an effort to “put aside the well-remembered and haunting violence of unity-threatening events in order to ensure national cohesion and reinforce group solidarity.”40 Not only did Togliatti want to ensure national cohesion, but also political unity in the face of greater powers (chiefly the United States) whose approval and alliance would determine Italy’s place on a global political stage. Varriale stated that in the formation of a post-Mussolini government, Togliatti wanted to align the PCI with other ideological groups because he did not want the party to seem like another extremist threat (following the failure of the extreme right of Fascism), and the integration of Communism into wider government would elevate the party and ideology’s significance in the postwar government.41 Moreover,

Togliatti was aware that the Americans would be extremely wary of a government run with socialism as its principal ideology, and so a more mellow amalgamation of socialism and democracy created a state that pleased Italy’s greatest economic ally.42 Overall, however,

Togliatti and the PCI were a significant presence in the postwar government, and their desire to foster national political unity resulted in the absolution of Italian war criminals and the consequent perpetuation of the narrative of the “Good Italian.”

Between the periods of the liberation of Rome in June 1944 and the end of WWII in

May 1945, the anti-Fascist Left endeavored to take Italian war criminals, such as the General

Mario Roatta, into court. These attempts were covered by newspapers and magazines, who reported on war crimes committed by Italian troops in their occupied territories in Yugoslavia.

However, the majority of these reports and accusations were levied against specific generals,

39 Forlenza, "Sacrificial Memory and Political Legitimacy in Postwar Italy,” 89. 40 Forlenza, 89. 41 Varriale, “The myth of the Italian Resistance Movement,” 388. 42 Varriale, 388. Marauta 16 and the common soldiers themselves were “praised even by the Left for their humanity” and for the fact that following the armistice a large number of them partook in the Resistance.43

The Left sought to emphasize the idea that the Italian army had gone from being an “occupier” to a “partisan,” and that the lack of presence of generals such as Roatta (who were part of

Mussolini’s “evil” line of henchmen) let the common Italian soldier join his true allegiance – the partisan cause.44 Once news of mass killings and deportations of Italians by the Nazis spread, the Left took on the express agenda of furthering Italian national interests. The attempt to punish Italian war criminals vanished from popular media, and information on Italian war crimes ceased to be disseminated. Though the Communist Party at times ambiguously spoke of the need to try Italian war criminals, they nonetheless “worked within government institutions to hinder the delivery of said war criminals.”45 This resulted in an extremely feeble attempt to try Italian military personnel responsible for war crimes against Allied prisoners of war in British and American tribunals in Italy.46 Moreover, no trials were held on Italian soil for war crimes committed against civilians and partisans in Italian occupied territories.47 This lack of bringing individuals to accountability demonstrates a significant aspect of the postwar

Italian government – the attempt to sweep the evidence and narrative of Italian responsibility for war crimes under the rug. The only political group willing to discuss Italian responsibility for war crimes (Communists) did so in an extremely unobtrusive and frail manner, and though they constituted a large part of the National Liberation Front and postwar government, they failed to put a trial in place. Consequently, this lenient attitude towards Italian war criminals resulted in their absolution in national public memory.

43 Focardi, "Italy’s Amnesia over War Guilt,” 19. 44 Focardi, 19. 45 Focardi, 20. 46 Focardi, 20. 47 Focardi, 20. Marauta 17

Not only was this absolution supported by the government who sought to put a politically unified Italy as a legitimate player on a global stage, but it was also supported by

Italian Zionist groups themselves. University of Genova Jewish historian Guri Schwarz stated that at the first meeting of Italian Zionist groups in Rome in January 1945, a text was compiled that thanked the Italians for their “goodness” and aid during the barbarism of the Nazi regime.48

The fact that the Zionist group acknowledged the Italian civilians’ benevolence and willingness to aid them was significant to a government who was trying to distance themselves as much as possible from Nazi ideology and policies. This text was widely circulated both in Italy and abroad, and the Italian Foreign Ministry made sure that this was the legacy of Italian action during WWII.49 An October 1944 memo, entitled “Some International Aspects of the Jewish

Question,” evidenced the Foreign Ministry’s agenda to “clean up Italy’s public image.”50 The most evident way to do so was to align themselves with “Jewish circles” in Britain and the

United States, and put the responsibility for racial laws in Italy solely on Mussolini and

Fascism.51 In response to a Belgian journalist who had enquired (at the Italian embassy in

Brussels) after the fate of the Jews in Italy, the Italian ambassador transmitted this inquiry to the government and underlined that he “felt it his duty” to emphasize that Italian race laws had

“scant application” and that Italian “people as a whole” sought to “sabotage” these laws and

“mitigate their effects.”52 This enquiry resulted in a September 1945 endeavor by the Ministry of Interior, who requested all prefects to “report on the application of the race laws in their provinces,” a move which provided “evidence” of Italians’ refusal to adhere to Mussolini’s racial laws.53 Overall, it is important to understand that Schwarz’s claim is not one that is critical of Zionist leaders’ actions. Instead, it is a view that comprehends the fact that Zionist

48 Guri Schwarz, “On Myth Making and Nation Building: The Genesis of the ‘Myth of the Good Italian,’ 1943- 1947,” Telos (2013): 18. 49 Schwarz, 18. 50 Schwarz, 18-20. 51 Schwarz, 18-21. 52 Schwarz, 20-21. 53 Schwarz, 21. Marauta 18 leaders’ lauding of Italian “humanity” was an effort to re-integrate Jews into Italian society,54 thus showing that they joined the government’s effort to create a unified society in peacetime.

Nevertheless, this resulted in the narrative of the “humane” and “Good Italian” being supported even by Jews themselves, giving said narrative national and international legitimacy.

The “Good Italian” in Popular Media

As stated earlier, the importance of mass media in the consolidation and dissemination of this narrative in popular awareness has to be explored. The first mediums to be explored will be films and television programs, both in the latter half of the 20th Century and the first few years of the 21st. Between 2000 and 2011, 112 domestic period dramas were aired on national television, a large number of which were focused on the Second World War and Italy’s national narrative.55 These dramas are largely centered around deeds of heroism and martyrdom undertaken by Italians (and individuals closely associated with Italy, such as Pope John Paul

II) during and after the war, and spread the notion that Italians were (and are) a benevolent and

Christian community.56 A large part of these dramas, including Giovanni Paolo II (2005) and

Sotto il cielo di Roma (2010), aired on RAI Uno, which is Italian national television’s flagship channel and very closely related to the Catholic Church.57 Consequently, from the onset, mass media is controlled by the state and the Church, and through its popular programs spreads the narrative of the “Good Italian” who aided the Jews and acted on their Christian faith.

Storie d’amore e d’amicizia (1982) is the basis for many of these dramas as it was one of the first to be aired. The series follows the story of a Roman Jew, Davide, a Roman anti-

Fascist, Cesare, and a Jewish woman, Rina, who both Davide and Cesare are in love with.

54 Schwarz, 43. 55 Emiliano Perra, "Good Catholics, Good Italians: Religion and Rescue in Recent Italian Holocaust Dramas,” The Italianist 34, no. 2 (2014): 156. 56 Perra, 157. 57 Perra, 158. Marauta 19

During the Nazi occupation of Rome, Davide and Rina get asylum in a monastery, where they attribute their safety to the guidance of the Holy Father (God).58 From the onset, this narrative demonstrates the themes of Nazi barbarism, the goodness of those with Christian faith, and the notion that the majority of common Italians were anti-Fascist. Since then, a large number of period dramas have featured the common theme of Italian civilians’ aid to, and solidarity with,

Jews, actions which derived from their Christian (Catholic) faith.

Individuals like carabiniere (policeman) Salvo D’Acquisto and chief of Italian police in Fiume Giovanni Palatucci, who gave up their lives in the effort to save persecuted Jews, were the objects of biopics as recently as 2003 and 2001, respectively.59 In D’Acquisto’s narrative, Salvo D’Acquisto, he and his partner Lucia team up with the parish priest while stationed in Torrimpietra (outside Rome) and provide shelter and food to Jews hiding from

German troops.60 Meanwhile, Senza confini shows how Palatucci allegedly saved 5000 Jews and was eventually arrested and deported to Dachau, where he later perished.61 In both these stories, D’Acquisto and Palatucci’s faith enables them to aid the Jews, and their “Christian heart” and open mind to other religions and peoples are put forth to a 21st-Century audience.

As a result, these “secular martyrs” (who were not members of the clergy, or directly affiliated with the Church through their rank) had “powerful Christological connotations,” and demonstrated how even Italian authorities acted on their Christian faith over following the orders of Fascists and Nazis.62

Some biopics went as far as changing history in order to portray the inherent

“goodness” and humanity of Italian statesmen. One such biopic was De Gasperi – L’uomo della Speranza (2005) which portrayed the life of the Italian statesman Alcide De Gasperi who

58 Perra, 158. 59 Perra, 158. 60 Perra, 158. 61 Perra, 158. 62 Perra, 159. Marauta 20 spoke in front of the General Assembly for the Peace Conference in Paris in 1946.63 In the film, he is portrayed as being disgusted by racial laws, expressing the desire that the Pope would denounce them more fervently.64 In reality, however, De Gasperi had written in L’Illustrazione

Vaticana, a Vatican journal, that he hoped “Italian racism [would] put in place concrete measures to defend and increase the value of the nation.”65 Evidently, the portrayal of De

Gasperi in a biopic proclaiming him the “Man of Hope” is manipulated to fit the historical figure into the mold of the “Good Italian.” As a result, these films and television programs created a 2000s Holocaust-conscious audience who assumed that Italian Christian benevolence was part of national identity. The theme of Catholicism vs. Nazism as a battle of Good vs. Evil was not only propagated in postwar political efforts, but it continues to be the subject of Italian period dramas aired today.66

The takeover in the 1990s of the center-right coalition with Silvio Berlusconi at its head resulted in an even further glorification of Italian actions and politics. University of Winchester

Holocaust historian Emiliano Perra argued that though there was a rise in discourse surrounding Italian accountability for war crimes, Berlusconi’s government sought to justify said war crimes by putting forth the image of barbaric Yugoslavian peoples who needed to be kept in check through brutal methods. The Berlusconi-controlled RAI aired Il cuore nel pozzo in 2005, a miniseries that showed the ethnic killing of Italians by Titoist partisans in Istria at the end of WWII, as these Italians were considered to be “Fascist perpetrators.”67 This film demonstrated the animalistic nature of Yugoslavian partisans and justified the need to control them through brutal means. Consequently, not only does mass media push forth the image of

63 Perra, 159. 64 De Gasperi – L’uomo della speranza, directed by Liliana Cavani (RAI Uno; Rome: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005), DVD. 65 Perra, "Good Catholics, Good Italians," 160. 66 Perra, 162. 67 Perra, 163. Marauta 21 the “Good Italian,” but it also absolves and justifies Italian brutality in their occupied territories in Yugoslavia.

The “Good Italian” in Popular Novels and Poetry

With regards to popular novels and poetry, we can explore Salvatore Quasimodo’s compilation of verses “Day after Day” that lament the sufferings and terror-inducing nature of the Italian army’s role in the war. This was done through the lens of a victimized Italian soldier.

For example, “On the Willow Bough,” which Quasimodo created in 1944, portrayed the “sense of vulnerability and fear in face of the Nazi terror that spread across Italy.”68

And we, how could we sing With a foreign foot on our heart, Among the dead abandoned in the squares, On the grass hard with ice, To the lamb bleat of children, The black howl of the mother Going toward her son Crucified on a pole? On the willow boughs as an offering Ever our lyres were hung And lightly swayed in the sad wind.69

As is observed by Forlenza, imagery of sacrifice and Christianity linked the terrified Italian soldier with an extreme sense of faith and vulnerability. Furthermore, by referencing Psalm

137 of the Bible, Quasimodo drew a parallel between Italians in the face of Nazi occupiers and the Jewish people in the face of the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem in 586 BC.70 Similarly,

Giuseppe Ungaretti’s collection of poems entitled The Sorrow (1947) made use of Biblical imagery of God, angels, suffering saints and lost sheep, in order to portray the extent of personal suffering brought about by the war.71 The prominent theme of the martyrdom and quasi-Biblical suffering of Italians at the hands of the Nazis was present in extremely

68 Forlenza, "Sacrificial Memory and Political Legitimacy in Postwar Italy,” 78. 69 Forlenza, 78-9. 70 Forlenza, 79. 71 Forlenza, 79. Marauta 22 commercially successful post-war films and plays, such as Edoardo De Filippo’s Napoli Gets

Rich! (1945), Roberto Rossellini’s Rome Open City (1945), and Alberto Moravia’s bestseller

La ciociara (1957).72

In addition to lauding the martyrdom, self-sacrifice and Christianity of Italian soldiers, many postwar popular texts put forth the image of Italian soldiers’ altruism and humanity not only regarding the persecuted people they helped, but also regarding their opponents on the battlefield. The Sergeant in the Snow (1953) is a novel and memoir by Mario Rigoni Stern, an

Italian military officer who was stationed in Russia, and the work portrays the thoughts of

Rigoni Stern as he fought against the Russians.73 However, instead of a memoir delineating the extreme fear of a barbaric and tyrannical enemy, The Sergeant in the Snow follows Rigoni

Stern’s realizing that soldiers on both sides shared a “common humanity.”74 This narrative portrayed the image of a benevolent Italian soldier merely doing his duty but feeling helpless and guilty due to the empathy he felt out of the “goodness” of his heart. The Sergeant in the

Snow became a best-seller, was inserted in the Italian school curriculum, and is considered the

“most successful autobiographical account by a front-line Italian in the war.”75 The novel’s success went far beyond Italian national popular culture, too. It was translated into German,

French and English, demonstrating that this image of the “Good Italian” was ingrained into other countries’ national historical memory as well.76

The mass medium that achieved the most international success was film, with titles such as Rome, Open City (1945) and La ciociara (1960) becoming box office successes. Sofia

Loren, 1960s fashion icon and prominent actress, rose to international fame and prestige after starring in La ciociara and becoming the first actress ever to win the Academy Award for

72 Forlenza, 80. 73 Forlenza, 85. 74 Mario Rigoni Stern, The Sergeant in the Snow (Turin, Italy: Giulio Einaudi Editore, 1953). 75 Forlenza, "Sacrificial Memory and Political Legitimacy in Postwar Italy,” 85. 76 Forlenza, 85. Marauta 23 playing a part in a foreign film.77 La ciociara tells the story of Cesira (Loren), a widow living with her teenage daughter in the outskirts of Rome. The film details the horrors and emotional trauma of the Marrochinate, the mass rape and killings committed by Moroccan soldiers fighting for the Allies at Monte Cassino.78 This popular film broadcasted globally the victimhood of wartime Italian civilians, and publicized a horrific narrative ingrained in national history. More recently, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001) starring Nicolas Cage and Penelope

Cruz told the story of an Italian soldier who fell in love with a Greek woman on the occupied island of Cefalonia, and whose battalion was friendly, fun-loving, and a tragic victim of the bloodthirsty Nazis.79 The narrative delineates the clear distinction between the “Good Italian” and the “evil Nazi,” and fosters a sense of sympathy in the viewer for the tragedy undergone by Italian soldiers once the Nazis turned on them. It earned over $62,000,000 in the box office and became a global success, earning more than $36,000,000 internationally.80 These important milestones and achievements earned by these films (both commercial and with regards to prestigious awards) demonstrate that the narrative of the “Good Italian” is one that has achieved global prominence. Hollywood icons like Sofia Loren and Nicolas Cage were recognizable and likeable, and their portrayal of the Italian wartime narrative tugged at the heartstrings of an audience who saw their favorite actors in these relatable and/or likeable Italian characters. As a result, instead of becoming a public that is critical of (and curious about) Italian involvement in the war, the audience is encouraged by mass media messages to be satisfied with the narrative portrayed by household Hollywood names. In the case of La ciociara, it was an important film, yet the fact that only this victimized narrative achieved global success ensured

77 Forlenza, 80. 78 La ciociara, directed by Vittorio De Sica, performed by Sofia Loren and Jean-Paul Belmondo (United States: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1960). 79 Captain Corelli's Mandolin, directed by John Madden, performed by Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz (United States: Universal Studios, 2001), DVD. 80 "Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)," Box Office Mojo, accessed March 18, 2019, https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=captaincorellismandolin.htm.

Marauta 24 that the other aspect of Italian history did not receive as much attention. For example, the 1989

BBC documentary, Fascist Legacy, brought to light the actions of Italian war criminals in occupied Yugoslavia and Africa. It was the first film made that actually exposed this darker narrative of Italian wartime involvement, yet when it was eventually purchased by RAI (the government-run Italian network) it was banned from release in Italy.81 Earlier on, in the 1950s, two filmmakers were arrested for attempting to make films about the Italian occupation of

Greece that depicted more violent and less ‘friendly’ actions on the part of Italian soldiers.82

Thus, there was extreme censorship of mass mediums that had the potential to influence large audiences, demonstrating that even popular culture was heavily monitored in order to uphold the image of the “Good Italian” on a world stage.

The “Good Italian” in Politics and Journalism

When exploring the way mass media propagated the notion of the “Good Italian” on a socio-cultural scale, it is also important to analyze the role of prominent publications and politicians. Schwarz explored how in Italy, words from prominent people who shaped postwar politics and defined national identity were key in ingraining this myth into national consciousness. Count Carlo Sforza, a notable political figure, prefaced Giacomo Debenedetti’s essay, Otto ebrei, and stated that “anti-Semitism” is “anti-Italian,” and that Fascist anti-Semitic laws (implemented in 1938, banning Jews from public life83) were extremely out of character for Italian culture and identity.84 Similarly, Politica Estera, a prominent Italian journal, published an article in 1944 that outlined evidence of the “humane attitude” of the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs regarding Croatian Jews.85 Using evidence from the September 1943 dossier

81 Forlenza, "Sacrificial Memory and Political Legitimacy in Postwar Italy,” 25. 82 Carroll, "Italian Atrocities in World War Two." 83 Jan Nelis, "Constructing Fascist Identity: Benito Mussolini and the Myth of Romanità," The Classical World 100, no. 4 (2007): 401. 84 Schwarz, “On Myth Making and Nation Building,” 14. 85 Schwarz, 22. Marauta 25

“Jews in Croatia 1942-43,” diplomat Roberto Ducci provided “evidence” that the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs “[saved] from certain death 3,000 persons who had put themselves under

Italian protection.”86 Evidence soon surfaced on the contrary, and demonstrated that Italians had turned away a vast number of Croatian Jews to certain death, as well as putting a number of Croatians – both Jewish and not – in concentration camps (evidence that will be further explored in the next section of this essay).87 Nevertheless, any small amount of evidence of

Italian “goodness” and aid to persecuted peoples was propagated in prominent national publications.

Benedetto Croce, a prominent Italian philosopher and politician, added to the discourse outlining Italian innocence and “goodness” when fighting for Italy’s right to take part in the

June 1945 San Francisco Conference. The Conference was to host the “fifty victorious countries” in order to endorse the charter of the United Nations, and Croce argued that Italy deserved a place at the Conference because, unlike the bloodthirsty Germans who had been complicit in the desire of the Nazi government’s extreme anti-Semitism, the Italians “were no machines” who “gave proof of their humanity” and aided Jews against the wishes of the Fascist government.88 It is significant to note that Italy did not get to attend the Conference, showing how Mussolini and Fascism’s legacy was not immediately or completely erased from public memory.89 Nevertheless, Schwarz argued that international publications were complicit in publishing articles and documents that lauded Italian “goodness.” One such example is a May

1946 article in the New York Times entitled “Fascist Rescues of Jews Revealed.”90 The article published German and Italian documents regarding the actions of Angelo Donati, the Vice

President of the Italian Red Cross who had created (but not successfully carried out) plots to

86 Schwarz, 22. 87 Davide Rodogno, Fascism's European Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 372. 88 Schwarz, “On Myth Making and Nation Building,” 24. 89 United Nations, Charter of United Nations and Statute of International Court of Justice, San Francisco, 1945, accessed November 12, 2018, https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/ctc/uncharter.pdf. 90 Schwarz, “On Myth Making and Nation Building,” 26. Marauta 26 rescue Jews in the southeast of France.91 As a result, such “evidence” of common Italians ignoring Mussolini’s command and instead acting out of “goodness” became a key part of international narrative outlining that the actions, principles and perspectives of individuals such as Donati were representative of the Italian people as a whole.

When exploring icons of later 20th Century national politics, the 1978 election brought to the forefront of national identity a key figure of the Italian resistance movement. Sandro

Pertini was elected President of the Republic on July 8, 1978, and though he was no longer

“officially” a Socialist, his past as a Resistance movement leader (during which time he was imprisoned in Turi for his actions and eventually became a signatory of Mussolini’s death warrant) remained a significant aspect of his public identity.92 During his seven-year tenure, he is known to have brought “wit and a homey touch” to Italian politics, making himself accessible and almost familial to the Italian public.93 When children toured the presidential palace, he made appearances and interacted with them; he often ate lunch with “workers”; and he displayed a very “Italian” amount of enthusiasm when watching the national team win the

1982 World Cup.94 After Pertini’s death, “large crowds” of Italians gathered outside his home to pay their respects,95 and Pope John Paul II fondly proclaimed that Pertini had been “a man dedicated to the struggle for freedom and democracy.''96 One of Italy’s most beloved leaders was representative of the Socialist cause and the fight against Fascism, and his friendly countenance and benevolent spirit resulted in contemporary publications like We the Italians proclaiming him one of the “Great Italians of the Past.”97 The fact that a figurehead for the

91 Schwarz, 26. 92 Philip Cooke, The Legacy of the Italian Resistance (New York City: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 127. 93 Clyde Haberman, "Sandro Pertini, Italian President With Common Touch, Dies at 93," The New York Times, February 26, 1990, https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/26/obituaries/sandro-pertini-italian-president-with- common-touch-dies-at-93.html. 94 Haberman, “Sandro Pertini.” 95 Haberman, “Sandro Pertini.” 96 Haberman, “Sandro Pertini.” 97 Giovanni Verde, "Great Italians of the Past: Sandro Pertini," We The Italians, April 14, 2018, http://www.wetheitalians.com/web-magazine/great-italians-past-sandro-pertini. Marauta 27

Resistance movement was, and still is, at the forefront of Italian national political identity is significant. His political success and his ability to capture Italians’ hearts and minds put him at a pinnacle of the narrative of the “Good Italian,” and added a political dimension to the national historical narrative that the Resistance had been Italy’s key contribution to the war.

Case Study: Mario Roatta

So what can be said about this narrative, and how can we contest it’s generality? How can we identify problems within this narrative by presenting alternative facts and historiography surrounding Italian responsibility for war crimes? Though the Italian army did not commit mass crimes to the scale that the Nazis did, it is nonetheless important to understand the extreme racism Italian occupiers felt towards the Yugoslavian people, who they believed to be inhuman and lesser beings. Italy’s responsibility for war crimes in their occupied territories in various African states is also a horrifying and significant narrative of Italian WWII history, however a detailed analysis of facts and historiography surrounding this aspect of

Italian war crimes falls outside of the scope of this thesis.98

The 2017 publication of General Mario Roatta’s diaries brought a fairly obscure yet controversial figure back to the forefront of historical debate. Francesco Fochetti’s revisiting of the diaries provided valuable insight into the mind of one of Italy’s most notorious (yet understudied) war criminals and brought to light the thought process behind his actions in

Italian-occupied Croatia. Roatta’s case is an interesting one to study because it explores the war crimes of Italians not only regarding Jews in the country, but also concerning an Eastern

European population considered ‘inferior.’ Consequently, Roatta’s mindset towards individuals in occupied Croatia, as well as the extent of the brutality committed towards these individuals, presents the underbelly of Italian WWII history, and evidences a darker side of

98 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 166. Marauta 28 national narrative. Focusing on Roatta and Italian action in Croatia provides a zoomed-in lens through which we can analyze wider socio-political attitudes, thus preventing us from approaching the topic within a parameter that is far too broad.

Marauta 29

Mario Roatta and the Italian Occupation of Yugoslavia

Background and Overview

General Mario Roatta’s persecution was complex and highly problematic. During the

Italian invasion of Yugoslavia between 1941-43, Roatta served as the commander of the

Second Italian Army, and was responsible for committing atrocities against the invaded population.99 Said atrocities were a part of his Circular 3C policy (of brutality towards the

Yugoslavian population), and included hostage-taking, internments, summary executions, burning down of villages, and the deportation of tens of thousands of individuals to various

Italian concentration camps.100 The Circular 3C’s main objectives were twofold: first, to defeat the Yugoslavian partisans; and second, to curb the invaded population’s fight for liberation once and for all.101 In concise terms, the plan involved: the shooting of hostages (with the specific purpose of eliminating communists); shooting male adults in villages suspected to have taken part in anti-Italian activities; the deportation of the rest of the population (including women, children and the elderly) to concentration camps; the burning down of villages using chemicals and flamethrowers; and the bombing of civilian homes.102 With regards to deportations, it was Roatta’s intention to deport over 30,000 people from occupied

Yugoslavia.103

As I combed through articles from the time in Corriere della Sera, it became evident that these events were not reported in the Italian news until a long time after the fact. The earliest mention of Roatta’s atrocities in Yugoslavia came on November 12, 1943, the day of

Roatta’s demotion from his post as Chief of Staff of the Army. The article, entitled “Roatta e

Ambrosio processati in Jugoslavia?” (“Roatta and Ambrosio: tried in Yugoslavia?”), is a

99 Francesco Fochetti, “Introduction,” in Mario Roatta: Diario, 6 Settembre - 31 Dicembre 1943 (Milano: Mursia, 2017), 14. 100 Carroll, "Italian Atrocities in World War Two." 101 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 56. 102 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 56. 103 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 78. Marauta 30 miniscule, 4-sentence article that takes up a fraction of the newspaper’s front page, and vaguely mentions that the two generals were accused of “supposedly” committing war crimes and that further action was to be determined by the United Nations.104 When trying to find outlets that reported on the Yugoslavian atrocities in real time, I found material in archives from newspapers abroad. An American journal, the Lewiston Evening Journal, did publish an article reporting on the Italian execution of “800 in Yugoslavia,” but this was only done in July 1942, months after Roatta and his colleagues implemented their oppressive measures in January of that year.105 And even once news of these crimes became more widespread, the Allies were reluctant to persecute Roatta and his colleagues, following in the vein of Roosevelt’s stance of appeasement towards Italy.106 As was stated by Bordoni, American foreign policy towards Italy was centered around the possibility of forming a separate peace treaty, and measures were taken to demonstrate to Italy that the Allies differentiated Italy from Germany.107 As late as the

November conferences in Cairo and Tehran in 1943,108 as well as the conferences in

Washington (May) and Quebec (August) of that same year, Roatta was a key Italian representative.109 It was not until November 1943, when Yugoslavia brought charges against

Roatta on an international stage, that a climate of hostility against Roatta and other Italian war criminals was ignited.110

By June 1943, Roatta had become the Chief of Staff of the Italian army, and the fact that he held such a key position became central to his persecution. In light of Yugoslavia’s public charges in November of that year, the Allies demanded that Roatta be dismissed from

104 "Roatta e Ambrosio processati in Jugoslavia?" Corriere Della Sera (Milan), November 12, 1943, 268th ed. 105 "Report Italians Kill 800 in Yugoslavia," Lewiston Evening Journal (London), July 6, 1942. 106 Bordoni, Il Caso Roatta, 32. 107 Bordoni, Il Caso Roatta, 31. 108 "List of Persons Mentioned," in Diplomatic Papers, the Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943, proceedings, accessed September 28, 2018, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1943CairoTehran/persons. 109 “Index of Persons,” in Foreign Relations of the United States, Conferences at Washington and Quebec, 1943, proceedings, accessed September 28, 2018, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1943/index- persons. 110 Fochetti, "Mario Roatta: Cenni Biografici," 39. Marauta 31 his post as Chief of Staff.111 However, though Yugoslavia demanded that Roatta be extradited, this never actually happened.112 Instead, Roatta was kept in a Roman military hospital for health reasons, whose lenient security did not prevent his escape in 1945.113 By 1945, Italy had acquired a unique status as both victim and perpetrator of war crimes, a status accepted by the

United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) during its London conference of the

National Officers between May and June of 1945.114 As a victim, Italy was allowed to prosecute Italian war criminals who had committed crimes against other Italians, and in the instance that individuals were sought after by both Italian and Yugoslavian courts, the

UNWCC determined that each individual should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to an automatic extradition to Yugoslavia of said Italian criminals.115 Italy’s government, as well as American and British military authorities in the country, took measures to prevent the extradition of these war criminals.116 While Italy did this to save face in the aftermath of the war, the Allied powers’ lenient stance towards prosecuting Italian war criminals came from their desire to create a distance between Italy and Germany and facilitate postwar interactions with a politically and economically weak Italy.117 As is stated by international historian and London School of Economics fellow Effie Pedaliu, a steady relationship with Italy would ensure that it did not fall under Soviet influence (as tensions between East and West began to rise around this time), and Britain was adamant to maintain their popularity and economic influence in the country.118 It was agreed that matters of punishment of war criminals should be taken into Italian hands, and in September 1946, the

111 Mauro Tosti Croce, “Preface," in Mario Roatta: Diario, 6 Settembre - 31 Dicembre 1943 (Milano: Mursia, 2017), 7. 112 Bordoni, Il Caso Roatta, 113. 113 Oliva, Si Ammazza Troppo Poco, 21. 114 Effie G.H. Pedaliu, "Britain and the ‘Hand-Over’ of Italian War Criminals to Yugoslavia, 1945–48," Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 4 (October 2004): 519. 115 Pedaliu, 519-20. 116 Pedaliu, 520. 117 Pedaliu, 525. 118 Pedaliu, 525. Marauta 32

Italian government established the Commission of Inquiry that would prosecute 40 military officers and Fascist civilians on the basis of war crime charges.119 However, by the end of the

Commission’s deliberation period in 1951, none of the people they investigated were actually brought to justice.120 In a similar vein, Italy did not follow through with their war crime claims against the Germans, which is surprising given the occurrence of tragedies such as the mass killing of Italian soldiers by Nazis on the Greek island of Cephalonia in September 1943.121 As was stated by Pedaliu, this is indicative of the fact that Italy was adamant to forget the past, whether through the lens of victim or perpetrator, and just move forward.122

When looking at Allied actions in the country, in October 1946, Allied authorities were commanded by the CCS to stop taking Yugoslavian requests for the trial of Italian military authorities, and the matter of crime prosecution was left between Italian and Yugoslavian courts.123 As evidenced above, the former’s reluctance (and eventual failure) to properly investigate and punish the officers in question resulted in Yugoslav requests for justice remaining unsolved. Taking a more narrow lens and applying this perspective to our case study,

Bordoni claimed that seeing as the Allies’ primary focus was not on trying war criminals but on ending the war, the “we’ll deal with him later” attitude taken towards Roatta and his contemporaries gave him the time and space to figure out an escape route and evade being physically present at a significant post-war trial.124 Moreover, as was supported by Fochetti, the Allies’ leniency has often been attributed to their desire to push back against communism in Italy and maintain friendly political and economic relations, resulting in a lack of accountability on the part of Roatta and other Italian war criminals which has created widespread historical amnesia in Italy.125

119 Pedaliu, 525. 120 Pedaliu, 525. 121 Pedaliu, 526. 122 Pedaliu, 526. 123 Pedaliu, 526. 124 Bordoni, Il Caso Roatta, 14-6. 125 Fochetti, "Introduction," 28. Marauta 33

Roatta as a push back against the “Good Italian”

In an attempt to understand Roatta’s stance towards the Yugoslavians, we must explore the way his direction of the 2nd Army “indoctrinated” its soldiers by pushing into them the belief that the people they occupied were “sub-human,” and that they “defiled human values” as they were akin to “barbarians.”126 According to generals like Roatta, the fight in occupied

Yugoslavia was one between civilization and barbarism, and as a result leniency and friendliness towards the invaded peoples was to be absolutely prohibited. Such a strong stance against leniency towards the invaded formed a part of Roatta and Mussolini’s agenda to rid

Italy of its image as “good” and “romantic,” a direct reaction to German criticism that Italian generals were neither as brutal nor as persistent as their German counterparts.127

Roatta’s Diaries, 6 September-31 December 1943

In 2017, the Milan publishing house Mursia Editore published the never-before-seen diaries of Roatta, which the editor, Fochetti, had managed to obtain from Roatta’s son.128 The first, and most evident, aspect of Roatta’s diaries is his adamancy that he was not guilty of what the Yugoslavians labeled as “war crimes.” In reference to the war trials to be carried out against him and his colleague, General Vittorio Ambrosio, Roatta wondered “what [he and Ambrosio] had to do with this [trial].”129 Not only did he genuinely seem to think that his actions in

Yugoslavia did not constitute war crimes, but he also stood firm in his belief that neither the

Italian nor the British and American courts would seriously prosecute him.130 It is evident that even Roatta himself knew the extent to which the Allies were not serious about undertaking his trial, or that if they were, that he would not be found guilty. In his documentation of his

126 H. James Burgwyn, "General Roatta's War against the Partisans in Yugoslavia: 1942." Journal of Modern Italian Studies 9, no. 3 (2004): 317. 127 Burgwyn, 317. 128 Fochetti, “Introduction,” 19. 129 Mario Roatta, Diario: 6 Settembre - 31 Dicembre 1943, edited by Francesco Fochetti (Milano: Mursia, 2017), 117. 130 Roatta, Diario, 121. Marauta 34 interaction with Ambrosio, wherein they discussed these potential trials, Roatta quoted

Ambrosio as saying that they “should not give the issue too much importance.”131 But this begs the question of why Roatta held this view – was he aware of the fact that the Allies were trying to create a significant gap between Italy and Germany, in order to facilitate post-war interactions and negotiations? Did he believe that because the war was too pressing an issue, the Allies would not realistically have a significant amount of time aside to prosecute Roatta and his colleagues? Or was he convinced that most of the blame for wartime atrocities would fall onto Hitler and the Germans? This last question is especially poignant given that, as will be explored in the next section, in his post-war memoirs Roatta lays all the blame for atrocities in occupied Eastern Europe on the Nazi regime.132

Above all questions regarding the Allies, however, is the Badoglio government’s unwavering support for Roatta on an international stage. In his diary, Roatta mentions that he had been “assured” of the Government’s support should the war crime trials actually happen.133

Consequently, it was not only a lenient Allied stance, but also the Italian government’s determination to cover up Italian wartime embarrassment, that gave Roatta the confidence to assert his innocence in the face of international accusations and the request for his extradition.

Roatta’s “Otto Milioni di Baionette”

Otto Milioni di Baionette (Eight Million Bayonets) is one of Roatta’s numerous post- war accounts, published by the Milanese publishing house Mondadori in 1946. This is the first instance in which Roatta publicly and vehemently puts all the blame for war crimes on

Germany, and my interpretation presents two reasons for him having done so: first, to express his frustration with the limited political role Germany had given to Italy when deciding which

131 Roatta, Diario, 122. 132 Mario Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette (Milan: Mondadori, 1946). 133 Roatta, Diario, 171. Marauta 35

Yugoslavian territories each state would annex;134 and second, to clear his name, and by consequence that of the Italian army.

Regarding the geographical barriers set up by Hitler, Roatta complained of how Hitler took the valley of Sava for himself. Sava ran parallel to the former Italian-Yugoslav border and was full of mines that held important minerals and materials. Therefore, according to Roatta, not only did it make more geographical sense to hand this territory over to the Italians, but it would also have facilitated their wartime industry.135 Moreover, he disagreed with Hitler’s division of the Yugoslav people in the patchwork of annexed territories that were to be

“unevenly” divided.136 As a result, it is evident that Roatta put the blame for the socio- politically complicated Yugoslavian situation on Hitler in an attempt to further fuel the narrative of “Good Italian” vs. “Bad German.”

The most bizarre aspect of this reading, however, is the fact that Roatta blamed both

German and Italian soldiers for war crimes and spoke of the atrocities committed. Yet, he maintained that in the Italian army, such crimes were not the norm, and individuals who committed such “unfortunate” and “inhumane” crimes were punished accordingly.137 This is a far cry from his diary entries at the time, in which he vehemently denied that the Italian army had committed any form of war crime.138 Roatta cited a story from October 1942, when a member of the Militia battalion assaulted a Dalmatian woman, killed her husband and then tried to assault another girl aged twelve.139 To punish the soldier, the Italian war tribunal sentenced him to death by shooting, a fact Roatta proudly proclaimed in order to demonstrate the extent to which he believed such a soldier should be brought to justice.140 The paradox here is that Roatta acknowledged that such acts constituted war crimes, yet he still maintained that

134 Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette, 166. 135 Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette, 165. 136 Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette, 164. 137 Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette, 167-8. 138 Roatta, Diario, 117. 139 Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette, 168. 140 Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette, 168. Marauta 36 his own actions (burning down villages and putting resulting displaced populations in concentration camps141) were not ‘crimes,’ but necessary wartime actions.

Adding onto this already outlandish interpretation, he went on to claim that the Italians actually saved Yugoslavian populations from German brutalities.142 He stated that the Italian

Army “saved the lives and possessions of a number of the Serb-Orthodox community” by sending them to camps away from the approaching German army, citing around 600,000 people rescued.143 In addition to this, he claimed that the Jews who escaped from Zagreb and other Croatian zones occupied by the Germans were taken under Italian protection and put into camps for their safety.144 This notion that the Italians protected the Jews and Yugoslavians is prominent amongst historians advocating for the narrative of the “Good Italian,” as it is a further example of the way Italians were a “humane and Christian peoples” who were unfortunately allied with the “bad Germans.”145 If, as claimed by Russian-born French

Holocaust historian Leon Poliakov, the Italians acted against the bestiality of German officers pillaging Croatian villages, then how does this explain Roatta’s own burning down of Croatian occupied territories and the consequent death of thousands?146 When engaging with historiography of the “Good Italian,” it is important to observe the sources of the information that historians cite. Poliakov claimed that Jews “enjoyed complete liberty under the protection of the Italian flag” in Spalato, Zebenico and Cattaro,”147 yet how does this explain the evidence that Eastern European Jews were turned away from Italian-occupied Croatian territories and sent back to where Italians knew they would be exterminated by the Germans?148 While facts and figures regarding the number of individuals killed or deported to Italian concentration

141 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 59. 142 Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette, 170. 143 Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette, 170. 144 Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette, 170. 145 Léon Poliakov and Jacques Sabille, Jews under the Italian Occupation (New York: Fertig, 1983), 44. 146 "Report Italians Kill 800 in Yugoslavia.” 147 Poliakov and Sabille, Jews under the Italian Occupation, 134. 148 Rodogno, Fascism's European Empire, 372. Marauta 37 camps present hard evidence of Italians’ stance towards populations in their occupied territories (figures which will later be explored), historiography claiming that the large part of

Italian soldiers helped the Jews do not cite such concrete information. Instead, as was explored earlier, both mass media and historiography advocating for the notion of the “Good Italian” have cited the diary entries or plans of specific Italian individuals (like Angelo Donati, the Vice

President of the Italian Red Cross whose narrative was explored earlier) who attempted to save various persecuted populations. Yet, by using evidence from these minorities in order to claim that Italians were universally a good and helpful people, individuals like Poliakov perpetuated the problem of generalizing a narrative of select individuals in order to absolve Italians of wartime guilt, responsibility and embarrassment.

Regarding the cooperation with the Croats, Roatta emphasized the supposed

‘friendship’ between the Croats and the Italians, claiming that the Croats were not opposed to the presence of, and cooperation with, the invading Italian army.149 Roatta’s re-writing of history involved a supposed compromise of the political desires of the Croatian and Italian governments, and the claim that the occupied territories enjoyed a sort of harmonious unity in ruling.150 Evidence against this will be presented and analyzed in a couple of sections, but for now, Roatta’s attempt to rewrite history begs the question of whether he was aware that facts and figures from his occupation would eventually surface. The magnitude of his falsities and revisionism is quite outlandish.

Roatta’s Defense

Before undertaking an analysis of Roatta’s trial and defense, we must look at the timeline of Roatta’s life from 1943 to his escape in 1945. On November 10, 1943, Roatta was accused by the Yugoslavian government of having committed war crimes, and the Allies

149 Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette, 172. 150 Roatta, Otto Milioni Di Baionette, 179. Marauta 38 demanded Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio to take Roatta down from his position as Chief of

Staff of the Italian Army.151 Two days later, on November 12, Roatta was removed from his post as Chief of Staff, demoted to General of the IX Army Corps, and sent to an area far from the government seat, in Francavilla Fontana (Apulia, in Southern Italy).152 On November 16,

1944, Roatta was arrested in the offices of the High Commissioner for crimes against the state, and he was detained in a military prison named Forte Boccea. In January 1945, citing the need for a medical checkup, Roatta was moved to the clinic of Prof. Francesco Cenciarelli in

Rome.153 On January 22, Roatta was tried by the High Court of Justice at La Sapienza

University, during which he maintained his innocence.154 On February 16, he was transferred to the Virgilio Army Hospital, also in Rome, due to ‘dire’ physical conditions. And, on the night of March 4, he escaped from his hospital room with the help of carabinieri suspected to still support him.155 He lived in and around Rome in disguise, with the help of influential friends and even two convents (for whom he was a night guard), and after years of inconclusive searches, the Court of Justice dropped the case in 1948.156 That same year, Roatta managed to flee to Spain, where he was put under the protection of General Francisco Franco.157

Overt support for Roatta can be observed in the interrogation of Quinto Mazzolini, an

Italian official who held an important post in the Italian Foreign Ministry starting 1943.

Mazzolini claims that the only Croatian individuals whom Roatta and his men took serious measures of aggression against were the Ustasha, because they constituted a public danger and thus Roatta and his subordinates took measures to protect the wider population of Italian- occupied Croatia.158 In addition to this, as stated earlier, Roatta and his officers claimed that

151 Fochetti, “Mario Roatta: Cenni Biografici," 39. 152 Fochetti, “Mario Roatta: Cenni Biografici," 39-40. 153 Fochetti, “Mario Roatta: Cenni Biografici," 40-1. 154 Fochetti, “Mario Roatta: Cenni Biografici," 41. 155 Fochetti, “Mario Roatta: Cenni Biografici," 41. 156 Fochetti, “Mario Roatta: Cenni Biografici," 42. 157 Fochetti, “Mario Roatta: Cenni Biografici," 42-3. 158 Donatello De Luigi, Il Processo Roatta (Rome: D. De Luigi, 1945), 45. Marauta 39 those detained in Italian camps were put under Italian protection, and that they had “protected”

Jews and Yugoslavian peoples escaping German occupation and brutality.159

Adding to Roatta and his generals’ justification for mass deportations, Arturo Santoro,

Roatta’s defense counsel, claimed that Roatta was not a “Fascist and inhumane” general, and that his many achievements and accolades as a General for the Italian Army made him deserving of more respect than the ‘absurd’ accusations pitted against him.160 Another member of Roatta’s defense, Ferruccio Liuzzi, continued by stating that Roatta’s actions were purely military, and necessary to be undertaken in his position as head of an invading army.161 Once again, the idea that such atrocities were inevitable wartime collateral damage was used to excuse Roatta’s behavior, in light of the facts presented after the war regarding the Italian military’s actions in occupied Yugoslavia. It is important to understand that these trials took place during a time when humanitarian concerns were brought to international attention for the first time, and that the defense of brutality as a ‘necessity’ during war was considered a valid one. Yet, the defense’s premises – that Roatta was a reputable general and should not be punished, and that his actions were “normal” wartime procedure – do not explore the fact that the Circular 3C and its consequences of vast death and destruction were, in fact, war crimes.

The added dimension of the war against communism is another fact that must be explored, albeit briefly. Historians like Bordoni have explored how the extreme repression of certain Yugoslavian populations was justified as a push back against communism in the region, an ideology which was an enemy to Western political freedom.162 Roatta himself claimed that the Italian army allying themselves with the Chetniks (a Serbian guerrilla) was a move against the Yugoslavian communist party (the Chetniks fought communist partisans),163 as the

159 Roatta, Otto Millioni di Baionette, 170. 160 De Luigi, Il Processo Roatta, 148. 161 De Luigi, Il Processo Roatta, 166. 162 Bordoni, Il Caso Roatta, 26. 163 Rodogno, Fascism's European Empire, 309-10. Marauta 40

Yugoslavian partisans were “considered immoral creatures” who lay outside the realms of the rights given to peoples and protected by law.164 As a result, by giving this political group (the

Communists) an ‘inhumane’ dimension, Roatta excused – and even dismissed – his mistreatment of them. Overall, extreme brutality towards an occupied population in the name of the (social, political and economic) ‘safety’ of the Italian nation was prevalent in Fascist foreign policy and continues to be present in Matteo Salvini’s rhetoric today (a notion which will be explored in further depth in the last section).

Evidence Against Roatta’s Claims

The primary piece of evidence that rebuts Roatta’s claims of innocence were found in the documents Roatta abandoned in his office after his escape from occupied Croatia on

September 8, 1943. Roatta’s Circular 3C involved the “shooting of hostages,” chiefly communists, the shooting of men even remotely involved in dissent in occupied villages, the burning down and/or bombardment of villages, and the consequent deportation of women, children and the elderly to Italian-run concentration camps.165

Other primary sources include diaries of individuals who saw Italian brutality firsthand.

One of these was Pietro Brignoli, chaplain of the Regiment of the Division Granatieri of

Sardegna, who published his dairies in 1973. In an entry from July 23, 1942, Brignoli discussed how the Italians killed young men without mercy in a certain Croatian village (it is unclear which village he is talking about), because they were believed to be a threat to uncontested

Italian rule.166 Brignoli further stated how the Italians left behind a village of weeping women and children without husbands/fathers or a place left to live (because the Italians had burned houses down).167 He then went on to state that the next day he held a Holy Mass for the

164 Bordoni, Il Caso Roatta, 27. 165 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 56. 166 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 59. 167 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 59. Marauta 41 deceased,168 which is something that confused me because while this man could sit back and observe the atrocities without saying anything, he nonetheless wanted to pray for the souls of those shot by members of his own brigade. The fact that this entry was published by a major publishing house, Longanesi, is significant in demonstrating that the memory of Italian brutality was not completely swept under the rug. Nevertheless, the chaplain’s stance is one of sorrow and Christianity, adhering to the image that the “regular” Italian was “good” and pious, and thus the publishing of these diaries narrated through the perspective of a sorrowful

Christian made the text less controversial. Other popular texts that tried to evidence the extent of Italian brutality in occupied territories include the aforementioned 1989 BBC documentary,

Fascist Legacy, which was banned from release, showing the extent to which censorship was present in the post-WWII government and media.169

One of the most infamous instances of mass brutality occurred in Podhum, a Croatian village near Fiume, on July 13, 1942. The prefect of Fiume, Temistocle Testa, had ordered for the mass killing in response to the murder of 16 Italian soldiers by rebels from Podhum ten days earlier, and in a letter to the Foreign Minister stated the need to wipe out the village.170 At

Podhum, 108 men were shot to death (the youngest of them aged 14), while the rest of the women and children were sent to concentration camps.171 Sixteen other cases of mass shootings carried out by Italians occurred during their occupation of Yugoslavia, whose numbers will be evidenced below:

• Ljubljana executions (24 April-24 July 1942): 103 Slovene hostages massacred • Čabar massacre (July 1942): 132 Croats massacred • Rog (July-August 1942): 300 Slovenian civilians killed during anti-Partisan mission • Jermendol (July-August 1942): 40 Slovenian civilians massacred • Dragljane (August 1942): 150 Croats murdered by Chetniks and Italians • Dugopolje (October 1942): 34 Croats killed by Chetniks and Italians

168 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 59. 169 Forlenza, "Sacrificial Memory and Political Legitimacy in Postwar Italy,” 25. 170 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 61. 171 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 61. Marauta 42

• Primosten (25 November 1942): 80 Croats massacred by Italians (burned village) in response to Partisan actions • Siroka Kula (January 1943): 185 Croat civilians by Italian forces • Turkanj (January-February 1943): 208 Croat civilians and hostages killed • Mekinjar (17 February 1943): 30 Croats killed by Chetniks and Italians • Sibenik (23 April-15 June 1943): 240 Croat hostages executed, in response to Partisan actions • Vrpolke and Perkovic (22 May 1943): 66 Croat civilians killed in response to Partisan attack on nearby railway • Medede (May-June 1943): 72 Serb and Montenegrin civilians killed • Bar (June 1943): 180 Montenegrin civilians killed at Bar concentration camp • Komin (June 1943): 228 Croats murdered • Lovreć (10 July 1943): 112 Croats, both civilians and Partisans, killed172

Though it would be an extremely lengthy process to outline the exact reasons for each of the massacres, the frequency with which they occurred is the key point of analysis for this section.

Between April 1942 and July 1943, Italian forces killed nearly 2,050 civilians and partisans through mass executions and the burning down of villages. While some instances were a response to partisan attacks, others (as was the case in Podhum) were instead a warning to civilians who were suspected of having joined the partisan cause. The numbers of affected civilians increase when taking into account the amount of concentration camps Roatta ordered to be prepared, as deportations of entire villages became more and more frequent and the need for space at these camps became even more urgent. The numbers present at, as well as the conditions of, these concentration camps will be explored later on in this chapter.

These mass killings were justified because the Yugoslavians were considered

“barbarians,” a racist rhetoric adopted by Italian generals in many of Italy’s occupied territories. In Ethiopia, for example, Pirzio Biroli, governor of Gondar, gave orders to push tribe leaders into lake Tana with a heavy weight tied to their neck.173 As has been studied by

172 "List of Mass Executions and Massacres in Yugoslavia during World War II," Wikipedia, accessed March 18, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_executions_and_massacres_in_Yugoslavia_during_World_War_II# CITEREFReport_on_Italian_War_Crimes_against_Yugoslavia_and_its_people1946. 173 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 62. Marauta 43

Italian historian Costantino Di Sante, Biroli’s extreme brutality towards the Ethiopians resulted in Mussolini appointing him to Montenegro in 1941 to quell the revolt, and in a pamphlet distributed to Italian soldiers under his command, he called them to action in order to put an end to the “vindictive” and “uncivilized” Slav race, who detested – and were jealous of - Italian

“racial superiority.”174 He further pushed soldiers to “show those barbarians” Italian power and superiority, and warned them not to trust anyone who was not an Italian soldier.175 In the end, he stated that a battle against such “barbarians” was a battle between “Good and Evil,” once more alluding to the idea that such brutality was righteous and justified and that the Italians were fighting for a greater “good.”176 Consequently, it is evident that a rhetoric of extreme racism was used amongst Italian generals to encourage mass brutality against occupied peoples, and though this may not have constituted the desires and actions of the vast majority of Italian soldiers and civilians, common Italians were nonetheless complicit in the killing and deportation of occupied territories’ civilians, as well as in the creation and running of concentration camps.

Here, we will take a moment to understand what this information and primary evidence implies. Firstly, it does not state that all Italians were complicit in brutality towards occupied territories, and that there was overwhelming support (either in the military or in the population) for the approach and actions of Roatta and his colleagues. The significant takeaway from an exploration of the aforementioned documents is that in the creation of the postwar narrative of the “Good Italian,” politics and popular culture have ensured that a small yet extremely important aspect of Italian wartime participation is left out. The creation of a national historical narrative that puts Italian “goodness” and Christianity, as well as the partisans’ sacrifice and efforts, at the forefront of national identity enabled a historical amnesia of Italian contribution

174 Costantino Di Sante, Italiani senza onore: I crimini in Jugoslavia e i processi negati (1941-1951) (Verona : Ombre Corte, 2005), 82-3. 175 Di Sante, Italiani senza onore, 82-3. 176 Di Sante, Italiani senza onore, 82-3. Marauta 44 to war crimes. Unlike Germany, where numerous monuments have been erected to pay tribute to those who lost their lives due to German atrocities,177 Italy has not paid any attention on a national public scale178 to the brutality that the nation’s generals, soldiers and civilians were either responsible for or complicit in.179 Though numerous historians such as Kersevan and

Bordoni have studied the subject, an extensive exploration of Italian responsibility for war crimes in their occupied territories still is not present in school curriculums. Moreover, seeing as television series and movies are the most widespread form of storytelling, the fact that narratives of Italian complicity in the committing of wartime atrocities are left out of these has resulted in the wider public remaining ignorant of the complexity of Italian involvement in

WWII.

Concentration Camps and the Dilemma of Documentation

Though, contemporarily, we have a myriad of evidence against the narrative of the

“Good Italian,” it is imperative to remember that immediately after the war, extreme censorship of events meant that a lot of specific information about the numbers of people in concentration camps, as well as the camps’ atrocious conditions, were not made available to the public. The extent of the tragedy of the Arbe concentration camp (located in Rab, Croatia), for example, was only truly made known after the end of the war.180 Given the information we now have, it is impossible for historians to claim that it was not Roatta’s intention to exterminate a large number of the populations he occupied. In a telegram order from June 2, 1942, Roatta commanded the XI Corpo d’Armata to get the camps in Monigo, Chiesanuova, Arbe and

177 Eric Westervelt, “Stumbling Upon Mini Memorials to Holocaust Victims,” NPR, May 31, 2012, https://www.npr.org/2012/05/31/153943491/stumbling-upon-miniature-memorials-to-nazi-victims. 178 Bridget Kevane, “A Wall of Indifference: Italy’s Shoah Memorial,” Forward, June 29, 2011, https://forward.com/news/139293/a-wall-of-indifference-italy-s-shoah-memorial/. 179 Ruth Ellen Gruber, “Italy still years away from first Holocaust museum,” The Times of Israel, 23 January, 2013, https://www.timesofisrael.com/italy-still-years-away-from-first-holocaust-museum/. 180 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 61. Marauta 45

Renicci ready for 20,000 detainees.181 There was to be a deportation of people from the villages

Roatta and his army had burned down, and individuals of all ages and genders were to be kept together in atrocious and inhuman conditions.182 A lack of adequate living structures exposed internees to extreme weather, and the atrocious sanitation conditions, as well as the dismal amount of food given to internees forced to undertake extreme physical labor, resulted in an estimated 4,500 deaths of men, women, children and the elderly at Arbe in 1942 alone.183 Once the camps of Arbe, Monigo and Chiesanuova became filled and proved unmanageable, Italian military authorities ordered the construction of other camps, such as Renicci. In Renicci, the half-finished structure resulted internees sleeping in flimsy tents and cold cement even during extreme winter weather, resulting in 160 deaths in the first few months of the camp’s function.184 Yet, since the Italians viewed the Yugoslav population as “lesser” and “sub- human,” putting these displaced populations into crowded and unsanitary camps was not unthinkable.185 As was argued by Kersevan, the Italian soldiers’ and generals’ incompetency and lack of organization resulted in even worse conditions than they had originally imagined.

Furthermore, the exact number of deaths was never recorded, and figures are chiefly taken from letters between military officers (and not from official documentation), demonstrating the extent to which the lives of the Yugoslavians were seen as lesser and unimportant. They were not treated as humans, but as mere figures, side-effects to the Italian army’s quest for more territory, resources and power.

According to primary sources, which consist of mostly diaries and accounts of survivors of Italian camps like Arbe, the living and working conditions of these camps were inhuman beyond imagination. A large number of infants died because of malnutrition, women

181 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 72. 182 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 73. 183 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 73. 184 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 75. 185 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 74. Marauta 46 gave birth to stillborn babies, and the extreme cold brought about by the winter made it impossible for them to work and survive.186 Consequently, such inhumane conditions heavily counter the claims that concentration camps were meant to be an asylum for refugees fleeing

German atrocities187 – these camps presented atrocities in and of themselves.

So what? Mussolini and the Rise of the Extreme Right Today

It is evident that comparing and contrasting historical narratives of Italian responsibility for war crimes in occupied territories presents a mosaic of perspectives. The key problem lies in the fact that many of the deaths in concentration camps were never recorded, resulting in a lack of concrete figures for the number of people affected. Yet, even without this concrete figure, evidence from Italian concentration camps, as well as evidence from the mass execution of civilians and burning of villages in retaliation for Yugoslav partisan action, demonstrate that

Italian occupiers were not wholly “good.” Roatta and his subordinates acted on the belief that those they occupied were inhuman barbarians, and even the mere suspicion of involvement in anti-Italian rebellion provoked mass killing or deportation to camps. Consequently, the postwar socio-political narrative of the “Good Italian” is highly problematic in that the Italian nation was never forced to come to terms with the actions of their occupying army. This lack of punishment and reckoning with past histories has resulted in a continued use of racist rhetoric and fear of the “other” as a political tool.

Xenophobia and extremist racist attitudes towards the “other” stand in sharp contrast to the universalized narrative of the “Good Italian.” Germany’s reckoning with its recent past

(a process Germans have termed Vergangenheitsbewältigung188) has resulted in a more careful

186 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 134. 187 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 139. 188 Vicki Lawrence, "Vergangenheitsbewältigung: Coming to Terms with the Nazi Past," Agni no. 48 (1998): 100. Marauta 47 attitude towards the “other” on the international stage189 and thus the possibility for an open- door policy towards immigrants,190 with German Chancellor Angela Merkel accepting over one million refugees into the country in 2015.191 Though more restrictions to this open-door policy were added in 2018, it is important to note that on a political and international level, the

German government has attempted to demonstrate that they are no longer living in the shadow of the Nazi legacy.192

This is most definitely not the case in Italy. As someone who currently lives in Italy and has experienced the rise of the extreme-right parties Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) and La

Lega Nord (whose coalition government came to power in June 2018), I have been struck by the similarities in socio-political attitudes between Mussolini and the M5S’s and Lega Nord’s current leaders, Salvatore di Maio and Matteo Salvini, respectively. All three leaders have wielded fear of a lesser “other” as a way of defining national identity. While Mussolini did so to justify the Italian military takeover of Eastern European and African territories,193 Di Maio and (especially) Salvini have done so at a time when the movement of African and Arab refugees and migrants across European borders has resulted in a new sense of population (and identity) crisis. What is “Italian,” according to individuals like Salvini? And what measures must be taken to protect this “Italian” nation and identity? Salvini’s claim that racism is a

“creation of the Left” and that a hostile attitude towards migrants is necessary to uphold Italian tradition, society, and a functioning economy, demonstrate the way racism is justified through

189 Luke Harding, "Angela Merkel Defends Germany's Handling of Refugee Influx," The Guardian, September 15, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/15/angela-merkel-defends-germanys-handling-of- refugee-influx. 190 Juliana Knot, "After 3 Years Of Open Borders, Politician Gives Merkel An Ultimatum," The Federalist, June 19, 2018, https://thefederalist.com/2018/06/19/ultimatum-forces-merkel-to-reexamine-immigration- policy/. 191 Maïa De La Baume, "Angela Merkel Defends Open Border Migration Policy," POLITICO, August 27, 2017, https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-defends-open-border-migration-refugee-policy-germany/. 192 Judith Vonberg, "Why Angela Merkel Is No Longer the 'refugee Chancellor,'" CNN, July 06, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/06/europe/angela-merkel-migration-germany-intl/index.html. 193 Nelis, "Constructing Fascist Identity,” 404-5. Marauta 48 a lens of “protecting” the nation’s interests.194 Moreover, right-wing politicians’ treatment of

WWII is further evidence of the problematic approach towards Italian wartime history. In 2003, then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi sought to vindicate Mussolini’s legacy by claiming that the dictator merely “sent people on holiday” and that “Mussolini never killed anyone,” in reference to the former Fascist dictator’s treatment of individuals in Italian-occupied territories.195 A large number of the tycoon’s followers adopted this same stance. More recently, in 2018, Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi claimed that, in the past, Italy had

“done things that weren’t right, but on a proportionally lesser scale than other countries” implying that this was enough to pardon them for the crimes they did commit.196 Mass socio- political support for Berlusconi and Milanesi’s views is evident from responses to the work of individuals like Kersevan and Oliva, who have sought to bring to light the extent of the Italian army’s brutality and have endured significant backlash as a result. Kersevan especially has become the victim of a hate campaign from the right, the most notorious incident of which occurred when the former Italian Minster of Defense, Maurizio Gasparri, drew a parallel between Kersevan and the KGB (Soviet state security) on live television.197 More recently,

Salvini showed his support for Mussolini in a tweet on the dictator’s birthday that included one of Mussolini’s infamous phrases, “Many enemies, much honor.”198 Opposition MP Matteo

Orfini, in response to Salvini’s remark, stated that “A person who has sworn on the constitution, which was born from the struggle against Fascism, should not allow themselves to pay homage to Mussolini,” and that Salvini should apologize for his comment.199 This apology never came.

194 Antonio Polito, "Razzismo E Frasi Di Mussolini: Perché Le Citazioni Pericolose Danno Un Alibi All’odio," Corriere Della Sera, July 30, 2018, https://www.corriere.it/opinioni/18_luglio_30/rischio-dare-alibi-all-odio- 9ab20d00-935f-11e8-8c02-559dd2886235.shtml. 195 Hooper, "Mussolini Wasn't That Bad, Says Berlusconi." 196 Leonardo Bianchi, Il Mito Degli Italiani "brava Gente", VICE Video, January 21, 2019, https://video.vice.com/it/video/il-mito-degli-italiani-brava-gente/5c458f48be407730f84bb334. 197 Michele Smargiassi, "Non Dire Falsa Testimonianza," Fotocrazia, March 23, 2012, http://smargiassi- michele.blogautore.repubblica.it/2012/03/23/non-dire-falsa-testimonianza/comment-page-1/. 198 Nick Squires, "Italy's Anti-immigration Deputy PM Matteo Salvini under Fire for Citing Mussolini," The Telegraph, July 30, 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/30/italys-anti-immigration-deputy-pm- matteo-salvini-fire-citing/. 199 Squires, “Italy’s Anti- immigration Deputy PM Matteo Salvini under Fire for Citing Mussolini.” Marauta 49

Instead, Salvini has further aligned himself with Mussolini’s racist rhetoric,200 refusing to accept NGO refugee boats because international crises are “not Italy’s problem” and stating that it is “traffickers of men” who send these migrants over in an attempt to disrupt the Italian social and political order.201 Turning away refugee ships because Salvini and his party did not believe them to be their responsibility was justified through the idea that these individuals were not coming from a serious crisis, but were instead the victims (and puppets) of a specific group of human traffickers seeking to do business in Italy. This assumption is factually incorrect, as there is an overwhelming amount of evidence demonstrating that these Libyan refugees were fleeing a country in the face of death due to either civil war or political turmoil and fear of persecution.202 Yet, the fact that politicians like Salvini can justify refusing to provide humanitarian aid, and be supported in this refusal, is demonstrative of the extent to which extremist rhetoric and fear of the “other” has once more taken center stage in national politics.

Moreover, Salvini’s rhetoric presents similarities to Mussolini’s. In his 1936 Proclamation of

Empire, Mussolini stated that Italian colonization of Ethiopia was an “irrepressible necessity” in order to create an “Empire of civilization and humanity for all the people of Ethiopia.”203

Thus, much like Salvini claimed to be turning refugee boats away to prevent these individuals from being trafficked, Mussolini used a similar rhetoric (“we are doing this to help them”) to justify taking over Ethiopia and thus gain popular support for his military campaign.

Antonio Polito, writing for Corriere in July 2018, tackles the phenomenon of Italian racism in an article entitled “Razzismo e frasi di Mussolini: perché le citazioni pericolose danno un alibi all’odio” (“Racism and Mussolini’s phrases: why dangerous phrases give hatred an alibi”). In his piece, Polito denies that this crisis of racism is merely a reaction to the socio-

200 Nelis, "Constructing Fascist Identity,” 404. 201 Thibault Larger, "Matteo Salvini: Italian Ports Closed to Migrants," POLITICO, December 23, 2018, https://www.politico.eu/article/matteo-salvini-italian-ports-closed-to-migrants/. 202 Steve Scherer, "Italy to Narrow Asylum Rights in Clampdown on Immigration," Reuters, September 25, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-politics-immigration-security/italy-to-narrow-asylum-rights-in- clampdown-on-immigration-idUSKCN1M41R8. 203 Nelis, "Constructing Fascist Identity,” 404. Marauta 50 political imbalance generated by the influx of migrants from Northern Africa who supposedly wreak havoc in Italian communities. Instead, he cites incidents, such as the incident in Partinico

(wherein migrants were beaten up at a bus stop204) and Aprilia (where a Moroccan man was suspected of being a thief, chased in his vehicle, then murdered205) to demonstrate the extent of racial brutality, and argues that this extremity of violence cannot be considered a triviality and novelty.206 The most striking aspect of these two incidents is that the individuals persecuted were not actually criminals, but were discriminated against, and consequently brutally attacked, because their skin color and evident identity as an “other” to the Italian nation immediately signaled them as a sub-human threat. Since Salvini’s rise to power in June 2018, violence against immigrants has risen at an alarming rate.207 Within the first few months of his tenure, there were two murders, twelve shootings, and thirty-three physical assaults reported.208

This level of violence towards immigrants demonstrates extreme xenophobic attitudes unleashed by a powerful political party’s frequent use of racist and xenophobic rhetoric, which once again rebuts the narrative that Italians are – and have historically been - a “good” and accepting people and that racist laws and attitudes were anomalous to Fascism.209 This level and extent of violence is not a rare and novel development, and neither is it in response to a statistical increase in violence and crime due to the presence of immigrant populations. Instead, it is an attempt to create a dichotomy between “Italianness” and the “other” during a time of extreme national political and economic instability that began to gravely affect the country just

204 "Partinico, Insulti E Botte a Migranti Alla Fermata Del Bus," Corriere Della Sera, August 15, 2018, https://www.corriere.it/cronache/18_agosto_15/a-partinico-migranti-insultati-picchiati-fermata-bus-521c0142- a091-11e8-8614-e56d93fd6b87.shtml. 205"Aprilia, Straniero Inseguito E Pestato Perché Lo Credono Un Ladro: Morto," Il Messaggero, July 30, 2018, https://www.ilmessaggero.it/latina/straniero_trovato_cadavere_dopo_un_inseguimento_indagati_due_italiani_p er_omicidio_preterintenzionale-3884672.html. 206 Polito, "Razzismo E Frasi Di Mussolini.” 207 Alexander Stille, "How Matteo Salvini Pulled Italy to the Far Right," The Guardian, August 09, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/09/how-matteo-salvini-pulled-italy-to-the-far-right. 208 Lorenzo Tondo, and Angela Giuffrida, "Warning of 'dangerous Acceleration' in Attacks on Immigrants in Italy," The Guardian, August 03, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/aug/03/warning-of- dangerous-acceleration-in-attacks-on-immigrants-in-italy. 209 Bianchi, Il Mito Degli Italiani "brava Gente.” Marauta 51 over ten years ago. In November 2008, following two sequential quarters of negative growth,

Italy’s economy hit an official recession.210 In November 2011, after multiple crises which included a trial for charges of the abuse of power and sex with an underage prostitute,

Berlusconi stepped down from power after almost twenty years as Prime Minister.211 A man who held both political and cultural power for nearly two decades was suddenly ostracized from politics, resulting in a nationwide identity crisis – if the man who controls the nation’s politics, economy and media was not to be trusted, then who was? Since Berlusconi, the country has seen multiple changes in power (five different prime ministers in eight years) accompanied by several failed attempts to reform government policies. In July 2017, the world’s oldest bank and the most significant bank in Italy, Monte de Paschi, was the recipient of a state bailout,212 and as late as February 2018, hundreds of Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees were driven out of the abandoned buildings they occupied and forced onto the streets in

Rome.213 This lack of social and political organization resulted in ambiguous policies (towards migrants, the country’s economic growth, etc.), and an identity crisis (what does it mean to be

Italian? What type of leaders does our country need?) that extremist rhetoric promised to resolve. Di Maio and Salvini’s government has maintained that Italianness consists of racial superiority over foreigners and a closed-border policy that keeps the economy “safe” from intruders. This rhetoric is similar to Mussolini’s, who in June 1919 claimed that powerful

Jewish bankers across Europe were “tied by bonds of race” with the “Jews of Moscow,” and that “world finance” is “in the hands” of a race “[seeking] their revenge against the Aryan race which has condemned them to dispersion for so many centuries.”214 Mussolini then stated that

210 "Italy Profile – Timeline," BBC News, last modified February 7, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-17435616. 211 "Italy Profile – Timeline." 212 "Italy Profile – Timeline." 213 Mattha Busby and Carlotta Dotto, "'I Love Rome, but Rome Doesn't Love Us': The City's New Migrant Crisis," The Guardian, February 19, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/19/rome-italy-migrant- crisis-squatting-emergency-shelters-asylum-seekers. 214 Gene Bernardini, “The Origins and Development of Racial Anti-Semitism in Fascist Italy,” The Journal of Modern History 49, no. 3 (September 1977): 432. Marauta 52 these powerful Jews had the “same blood as the dominators in Petrograd,” and that they were a vessel for the spread of Bolshevism.”215 Thus, from his early speeches, Mussolini demonstrated an ideological justification for racial discrimination against social groups he found threatening. Mussolini’s desire to ‘liberate’ Rome of undesired social groups216 and his hatred for supposed Jewish vessels for Bolshevism (a precursor to his anti-Semitic laws of

1938217) demonstrate a parallel to Salvini’s initiative to “conduct a census” of the Roma population in Italy and “expel” those who do not have Italian nationality in an effort to regain control of public funds.218 This determination to “raze” Roma camps and push Roma out of the country is present in Salvini’s policymaking efforts despite the fact that the Roma are considered a “stateless” population and thus cannot legally be ousted.219 This racist attitude common amongst Italian leaders goes against the national narrative of the “Good Italian,” consistently kind to his/her neighbors.

Thus, parallels can be drawn between attitudes towards the “other” as a way of securing and emphasizing Italian national identity amidst extreme social, political and economic turmoil. While, regarding the Yugoslavs, this was done to gain popular support for efforts in the border disputes over Trieste, Istria and Dalmatia,220 now such extremist public rhetoric is a response to the rising numbers of immigrants coming from African and Arab states. This anti-immigrant rhetoric has also been used to distract from the economic crisis currently still affecting the Italian population, with the coalition government’s 2019 budget increasing deficit

215 Bernardini, 432. 216 Nelis, "Constructing Fascist Identity,” 412. 217 Nelis, 401. 218 Elisabetta Povoledo and Gaia Pianigiani, "Italian Minister Moves to Count and Expel Roma, Drawing Outrage," The New York Times, June 19, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/world/europe/italy-roma- matteo-salvini.html. 219 Laignee Barron, "An Italian Official Is Calling for a Census of the Roma Minority. Critics Warn It Reeks of Fascism," Time, June 20, 2018, http://time.com/5316809/italy-matteo-salvini-roma-census/. 220 Benedetto Zaccaria, La Strada per Osimo: Italia E Jugoslavia Allo Specchio (1965-1975) (Milano, Italy: FrancoAngeli, 2018), 99. Marauta 53 spending to 2.4% of Italy’s GDP.221 Though current PM Giuseppe Conte blames “lagging international commerce” for the 4.6% decrease in the growth rate of Italian goods sold abroad, economists have attributed decreased domestic demand for consumer goods to a “slowing private consumption” and a messy political situation that has slowed down investments.222 In a time where difficult fiscal decisions need to be made, anti-immigrant rhetoric is an easy tool used by the far right to create social unity amidst national economic distress. Nevertheless, it is important to not generalize these attitudes of extreme racism and xenophobia as the Italian population’s “norm,” but to instead understand that such extreme sentiments have time and time again been put forth by political parties (first the Fascists, now the M5S and Lega Nord) to gain a following by using a simple and understandable rhetoric of “us vs. them,” or “Good vs. Evil.” Though immigrant populations are no longer put in concentration camps, the extreme violence exhibited towards them (supported by Di Maio and Salvini’s current right-wing regime) is nevertheless an indicator of attitudes towards the “other” as a sub-human danger to

Italian society. As a result, the generalized idea of the “Good Italian” who is kind to his neighbors and consistently works to save persecuted populations does not correspond to reality.

Yet, while information was harder to access during Mussolini and Roatta’s time, the current government’s policies towards migrants, as well as the national attitude towards foreigners considered “inferior,” can now be better scrutinized.

221 Shobhit Seth, "All About the Italian Economic Crisis of 2018," Investopedia, October 1, 2018, https://www.investopedia.com/news/all-about-italian-economic-crisis-2018/. 222 Giovanni Salzano, Lorenzo Totaro, and Demetrios Pogkas, "Italy Suffers Recession Alone in Economic, Political Isolation," Bloomberg, February 22, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/fixed-income.

Marauta 54

Conclusion

In answer to the questions posed in the introduction, this thesis concludes the following: first, that postwar mass media and politics created and perpetuated the narrative of the “Good

Italian” in order to foster unity in a fragmented country and attempt to give Italy social and political credibility on a world stage; second, government-controlled popular media like television and film have resulted in a specific narrative being told – even contemporarily – to the Italian public, who have easier access to (and who interact in a more engaged manner with) fragmented narratives and stereotypical characters portrayed in period dramas than to historiography like Oliva and Kersevan’s; third, this historical amnesia is problematic because the national historical narrative lacks nuance and complexity, and enables Italians to absolve themselves of responsibility for war crimes that were extremely brutal; and lastly, the fact that

Italians were never forced to “reckon with” their wartime brutality has resulted in a relaxed attitude towards racism and xenophobia, which in turn has enabled these to take center stage in extreme-right politics today.

As I have mentioned throughout this thesis, I am not writing a social commentary about how all Italians were bad people and that this “myth” is completely false. Instead, this argument has attempted to add nuance to current national historical narratives of a war that continues to have social, political and economic consequences today. It is important for Italians to understand that their role in the war was complex and at times infuriating, and that though

Mussolini and Fascism failed, there was support for and complicity with their extremist policies and aggression not only towards minorities within the country, but also towards the peoples they conquered. Moreover, it is important that the state take responsibility for the extensive brutality they were responsible for in occupied territories, because no matter how

“small” the scale of the crime, they nonetheless overturned an entire social order and caused widespread death and destruction amongst a people they considered “sub-human.” Marauta 55

This thesis can be considered a ‘call to arms’: Italy needs to better integrate the darker side of their WWII narrative into popular culture and mass media so that a contemporary audience has a more holistic, well-rounded view of the complexity of Italian involvement in the war. If we start to better understand some of the horrors of the flip side of national history, we can be more cognizant of the fact that “Italianness” is not a generalized identity. There has always been xenophobia, political and military clumsiness and insecurity, and an attempt to

‘prove’ that we are a nation to be reckoned with. Furthermore, xenophobia and extreme racism have long been a significant aspect of Italian domestic and foreign policy, from the inhumane drowning of Ethiopian tribal leaders223 to the mass killings of Yugoslavian men, women, children and the elderly. Reading the narratives of Italian “goodness” alongside the history of crimes committed in the name of Italianness, we can better understand how and why contemporary popular politics have begun to mirror aspects of Fascism’s extreme racism and xenophobia. Most importantly we should not let a single narrative define our nation, either for better or for worse.

223 Kersevan, Lager Italiani, 62. Marauta 56

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