The Jews in Italy - Before and after the Second World War

 

The fascist ideology certainly interested, in addition to a part made up of Christians, also a part made up of Italian Jews.

In spite of its intolerance, the fascist government did not attack the Jews until 1937.

The first laws against the Jews (racial laws) were issued in 1938. It was forbidden for the Jews to study or teach in the higher institutions of education; mixed marriages were forbidden; no Jew was accepted in the military career or in civil service; the Jews could not have Aryan domestic help; they could not have radios, they could not go to vacation places….

1938: expulsion of the Jews who immigrated to Italy after 1919 (whoever has at least one Jewish relative is considered a Jew).

1931: census of the Jews in Italy: 47,500 (in 1939: 35,100).

1938-39: 3,910 conversions to Christianity (101 in '36-'37).

25 July 1943: fall of the fascist regime; Italy signs the armistice with the Allies.

8 September 1943: the south is in the hands of the Allies; the center and north are controlled by the Germans.

16 October 1943: at dawn, raid in the homes of the Jews in Rome: more than one thousand Jews are taken.

A total of 2,091 Jews are sent to concentration camps; almost all of them die in Auschwitz.

At the end of the was the Jewish communities are considerably reduced due to deportations (7,750 dead), "conversions" (5,700) and emigration (6,000).

At the end of the war the Jewish population in Italy numbered 29,117 persons, as well as 26,300 refugees (in transit on their way to the land of Israel).

FOSSE ARDEATINE - 24 MARCH 1944 - ROME

Inscription on the marble plaque of the Portico d'Ottavia in Rome:

"Here on October 16th began the ruthless hunt for the Jews and two thousand ninety one Roman citizens were sent to a cruel death in the Nazi extermination camps, where they were joined by another six thousand Italians, victims of infamous racial hatred. The few who escaped the slaughter, the many who sympathize invoke love and peace from humanity and invoke pardon and hope from God."

* On March 23, 1944, a bomb placed in Via Rasella killed 32 German soldiers from the army of occupation and wounded 38.
* Hitler demands retaliation: 10 Italians for each German soldier.
* The Nazi commander, Herbert Kappler, the same who, the preceding October 16th, had organized a monstrous raid in the area of the ancient Ghetto, ordered the execution of 320 Italians.
* To arrive at this number, 270 prisoners were taken from the jails of Via Tasso and Regina Coeli and were added to the other 50 prisoners from Regina Coeli, designated by the prefect of Rome.
* Upon the death of one of the wounded soldiers, Kappler added another 15 victims.
* The victims were taken out to the outskirts of Rome, not far from the catacombs of S. Callisto and S. Sebastiano, on the Appian Way.
* They were killed in the grottoes of tufa in the Ardeatine, Jews and Christians together.
* Among those who were captured were 67 who were members of the Active Resistance and were tortured in Via Tasso; 5 professors and 6 students of the University who were fighting clandestinely, two 15-year-old boys, one General, two Germans from Berlin, all the men in entire families of Jews. A dozen of the victims were never identified.
* Of the 335 people massacred at the Fosse Ardeatine, 75 were Jews.