In Fascist Italy, Sinti and Roma were interned in concentration camps under Italian responsibility (campi di concentramento) as well as deported to concentration camps under National Socialist rule.
Differentiation from Nazi Concentration Camps
Study of the internment of the civilian population in Fascist Italy by historians began relatively late. In-depth analysis of the Italian concentration camp system began in the late 1990s with the work of Carlo Spartaco Capogreco (born 1955). In his main work, he makes clear that the Fascist concentration camp system was a coercive apparatus in its own right, tracing its genealogy back primarily to the treatment of the civilian population during the Italian colonial occupation of Libya.1Capogreco, Mussolini’s Camps. The Fascist concentration camp system was not an imitation of the National Socialist system: it had a different origin and a different development, at least during the Fascist-monarchist period, which ended on 25 July 1943 with the arrest of Benito Mussolini (1883–1945).
Forms and Practices of Internment in Italy since 1940
Immediately after Italy’s entry into the war (10 June 1940), the Ministry of the Interior introduced administrative regulations that governed the interment of civilians. These provided for the removal of various categories of people (both Italian and foreign nationals) to concentration camps or their internment in localities. The internment of nationals of enemy states present on Italian territory was governed by the martial law regulations, while the internment of those considered ‘dangerous’ or ‘suspicious’ was based on the law on public safety and its subsequent amendments.2Royal Decree-Law (R.d.l.) No. 1374 of 17 September 1940, which came into force on 12 October 1940, made amendments to the TULPS (Testo Unico delle Leggi di Pubblica Sicurezza) [Laws on PublicSecurity] of 18 June 1931, which gave internment the character of a ‘preventive measure‘.
Existing buildings were often chosen as sites for the concentration camps, and were remodelled for this purpose, while newly created camps with barracks were rare. The internment of civilians administered by the Ministry of the Interior aimed neither to exploit the internees’ labour, nor to exhaust and subdue them, and in this respect it differed significantly from the National Socialist system of concentration camps. Nevertheless, the hygienic and sanitary conditions in the Fascist concentration camps were very poor in most cases, and hunger was a constant threat that was only alleviated for those who were able to receive food parcels from outside.
Following the invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by Germany and Italy (6 April 1941), the Italian occupiers reacted with particular severity to the growing armed resistance.3Ferenć, Rab-Arbe-Arbissima. The Italian Royal Army took violent action against the local population and set up concentration camps for Slovenian and Croatian civilians both in the annexed and occupied territories (for example on the Croatian island of Rab, Italian Arbe) and within the old borders of the Kingdom of Italy (for example in Gonars). The camps operated by the Royal Army were used for the deportation of the Slovenian and Croatian civilian population without regard to any international conventions and were similar to Nazi concentration camps in their high rates of death from malnutrition and disease.4Capogreco, “Aspetti e peculiarità del sistema
concentrazionario fascista,” 218–23. There were camps consisting of barracks and tents, and some set up in military installations, and they were generally modelled on camps for prisoners of war.
Changes from July 1943
After the fall of the Fascist-monarchical regime on 25 July 1943, the provisional government led by Pietro Badoglio (1871–1956) issued a series of circulars providing for the gradual release of internees divided into various categories. The releases were not fully completed when German troops invaded the peninsula immediately after the announcement of the armistice on 8 September 1943.
On 23 September 1943, Benito Mussolini and the Fascist leaders who remained loyal to him founded the Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana, RSI) under the aegis of the National Socialist ally. The RSI attempted to reorganise the camp system in the areas remaining under its jurisdiction by interning political suspects, deserters and, from 30 November 1943, Italian and foreign Jews; for all of them, the RSI camps were the first stage of deportation to the Nazi camps.
In the Italian territories that were incorporated into the German Reich after 8 September 1943 (Julian venetia and Tridentine venetia), police and transit camps were set up for the deportation of Jews, political opponents and partisans (Italians, Slovenians and Croatians) to Nazi camps. The SS (Schutzstaffel) set up a crematorium in the Risiera di San Saba in Trieste, where the bodies of partisans who had previously been tortured and killed were cremated.
All deportations of Sinti and Roma from Italy or formerly Italian-occupied territories to Nazi concentration camps took place under German responsibility. Further research is needed to identify these victims.
