SHOAH ROMANA
The Jewish Community in Rome, 1922-1943
The Jewish Community of Rome
The history of the Jews of Rome begins well before the time of Christ. At the height of the Roman Empire, Jews and Romans lived side by side in the great city of Rome, which held a great deal of tolerance for the divergent practices of the Jews. During the Diaspora that occurred after the destruction of the second temple in 70 A.D, Jews in the Semitic hearth moved northeast and northwest. Those that moved northeast are known as Ashkenazi Jews; those that moved northweast are known as Sephardic Jews. Roman Jews simply never left.
The Diaspora Jews who left their homelands experienced the bitter taste of "otherness" when they transplanted a dichotomous religion and culture into societies not fully prepared to accept them. If not openly antagonistic, these societies at best held the foreign Diaspora Jews at arm's length, permitting the Jews to live parallel to them but not to live incorporated fully into society. For Jews who remained in Rome, this was not the case. Roman Jews continued to experience deep integration among the dominant non-Jews of Rome on a personal level, even as the tolerance of official Roman policy shifted.
Fascism and the Jews of Rome
Roman Jews at the time of WWII were utterly unique in Europe in that they were incorporated into society. They were Romans and Jews, and likely would identify as Roman foremost. They were neighbors, shopkeepers, Fascist party members and first class citizens. They were fighters and supporters of the 1870 Resurgiamento, the successful fight for the unification of Italy. They were some of the first supporters of Fascism, which was often seen as a continuation of the Resurgiamento they so supported. They were nationalists. They had the highest rate of intermarriage in all of Europe, and had an unusually high literacy rate (Adler 2008).
Thus, Italian Jews experienced WWII and the Holocaust in a very particular way. At the beginning of the Italian alliance with Hitler, the Furher requested that Mussolini hand over Italian Jews to him; the Duce placated him by saying that he would build his own work camps for Jews in Southern Italy. These never were used or completed.
Fascism and Anti-Semitism
This picture of pre-WWII Jewish life, however, is not complete without mentioning that many extreme Fascists were also anti-Semitic. The ideology of Fascism was not doctrinal and instead existed on a very broad spectrum. Those who were most extreme adopted an ideology similar to that of Nazism: they defined who an Italian was in only the strictest of terms. In many fascist newspapers and publications, very conservative Fascists printed anti-Semitic articles accusing Jews of being anti-nationalistic and anti-Fascist (Venzo 11). They further accused Jews of the usual crimes: control over politics and finance, usury, etc.
These extreme anti-Semites were the exception, however, and not the rule. Until July of 1938, the Italian government was more or less silent on the elephant in the room. If anything, it was pro-Jewish. In February of 1938, Mussolini declared in a newsletter on foreign policy that his government would never take any anti-Semitic actions (Venzo 11). Roughly ten percent of the Jewish population was registered Fascist, and Italy ranks second behind Denmark in the number of Jews saved during the war (Adler 2008).
Hitler, Mussolini, and the Jews
The envelope was pushed, however, on July 14, 1938 when the Manifesto of the Racist Scientists was published in many newspapers. It was furthered by the publication of The Defense of the Race in August, which was quickly followed by the establishment of the Directorate General for Demography and Race (Demorazza).
The approaching war and the requisite sidling up to Hitler led to the passage of the first of many anti-Semitic Royal Decrees on September 5, 1938. It barred all Jewish students and teachers from Italian schools, a measure that would be carried out by the recently established Demorazza. Indicative of the uniqueness of the Roman Jewish community was the exception: Jewish university students would be allowed to continue their studies (Venzo 12). Eighteen days later, the Fascist government passed another Royal Decree, which stated that primary school students would be allowed special organized lessons, and that Jews could set up their own middle and secondary schools out of pocket.
In November, the racial laws were extended into all aspects of society. With Royal Decree no. 1728, Jews were classified, forbidden from mixed marriages and officially expelled from all public office (Venzo 13).
PHOTO, ABOVE: The Synagogue in the Roman Ghetto. The Roman Ghetto has been 'opened' since Italian unification in 1870. The beautiful synagogue was built in the early 20th century and stands among ancient ruins of Rome, including the Teatro Marcello. Photo by Avery Enderle Wagner, 2014.
IMAGE, ABOVE: Cover of "La Difesa della Razza," or Defense of the Race. Racialized imagery and propaganda showing Jews, Africans, and 'others' as predatory and dangerous multiplied under the Demorazza and the German Occupation.
Racial Laws, November 1938
When Il Duce and the Fascist Parliament finally passed the 1938 racial laws, many prominent Jewish families were exempted because they were "first Fascists." Jews also exempted were those who were members of families that experienced military deaths and Jews with "exceptional merit" as deemed by a special commission (Venzo 14). Many of these laws were also largely ignored by both Jews and non-Jews alike, allowing daily life to go on more or less with some semblance of normalcy.
While there were pietisti, or overt Jewish sympathizers, most of Italy reacted to this abrupt anti-Semitism with indifference. They did not jump on the anti-Semitic bandwagon, yet most also did not jump to defend them. It was simply considered a "symptom" of the alliance with Hitler – something unfavorable but inevitable (Caracciolo). Even though the racial laws were in place, the executive branch of the Duce's regime applied them in a rather lax manner.
Many Jews fled to the countryside, where they were sheltered in the thousands by peasants who more than likely had never seen a Jew (Adler 2008). Most, however, decided to stay, believing that their lives were not in danger.
Until July 25, 1943, the Duce himself secretly authorized his military to not comply with German demands to hand over Jews in Italian-occupied zones such as Yugoslavia (Caracciolo). The only time of overt anti-Semitism in Italy was under the Italian Social Republic (RSI), which formed as a puppet regime of Germany after the allied forces made inroads into Southern Italy.
It was under this regime, the RSI, that German control of Rome, and the deportations of the Roman Jews began.
Sources:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Italy.” Holocaust Encyclopedia.
Franklin Hugh Adler. "Jew as Bourgeois, Jew as Enemy, Jew as Victim of Fascism." Modern Judaism 28.3 (2008): 306-326. Project MUSE. Web.
Venzo, Manola I and Bice Migliau. "The Racial Laws and the Jewish Community of Rome: 1938-1945." Gangemi Editore, Roma. 2007.
Caracciolo, Nicola, Florette Rechnitz Koffler, and Richard Koffler. Uncertain Refuge: Italy and the Jews during the Holocaust. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1995. Print.
Posters spelling out what the Jewish Italians could not do.
