The Holocaust of Jewish Greeks and Jews of Thessaloniki:
Italian Truncated, Selective & Hybrid Humanity,
Italiani Brava Gente into the 21^st Century¹
By
Paul Isaac Hagouel²

The role that Italy played in the Holocaust of the Jews of Thessaloniki has not been documented. Jewish Greeks of Thessaloniki and other nearby locales did not benefit from either Italian or Spanish diplomacy³ or the diplomats' actions. The unfortunate indirect, but decisive, role that Italy played in the annihilation of Jewish Greeks will be demonstrated. It is regrettable that the self-evident and obvious duty of a state to protect its own citizens had to be transubstantiated into and elevated to the realm of humanity and saving and rescue. Lastly, but not least, the protection of a few hundred Jewish Italians, including some non-Italians in Thessaloniki with ties to Italy, has evolved into the foundation and pillar of the moral physiognomy of the model Italian citizen and national identity of post 8 September 1943.

In the last decade, a surge in interest in Holocaust history and studies worldwide, as well as the maturity of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and its impact on the academic, educational, and museum and memorial fields, has produced a corpus of works dealing with many aspects pertinent to the Holocaust. One very noble component is the rescue of Jews in peril of annihilation during those dark years. Diplomats from various countries played a role in the rescue, some in direct conflict and contrary to the guidelines of their superiors. Many exceeded their competence and mandate and entailed personal risk and danger. Events that relate to rescue actions by Italian diplomats in Thessaloniki have been documented albeit lacking in detail and not presented or narrated in context. Italy was an aggressor, occupier, and perpetrator of crimes, so how can one talk, in the same instance, about Italian humanity?

In a previous work,⁴ I defined the term Holocaust to incorporate all the primal causes, causae causantes, irrespective of how far back we have to trace the past. Any actions or failures or reactions of any individual, group, society, and/or states which tolerate or, worse, kindle activities that may lead to other Holocausts, not necessarily of Jews, are also included in the definition. Consequently, we have to trace how Greece found itself occupied by the Deutsches (German) Reich, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria in the first place and thus, how the Jews found themselves in this dire predicament with the horrendous outcome and end.

Greece had declared its neutrality early on when the clouds of the impending war were gathering all over Europe. Unfortunately, the head of the government of the Kingdom of Italy, Benito Mussolini,⁵ had grandiose ambitions about a new Italian empire in the Mediterranean. Italy tried to provoke Greece and torpedoed the cruiser Elli on 15 August 1940.⁶ Even though the identity of the perpetrator was correctly presumed based on markings on a stray torpedo that hit the breakwater jetty, the Greek government restrained itself. Mussolini started getting restive since he yearned desperately to “match” the war campaign successes and conquests of his ally Hitler. Documents⁷ prove that, even if he was not preparing a campaign against Greece many months in advance, he was considering and planning for it a long time. The Reich not only knew about this but was also proactively “advising” and recommending that the Greek government come to an agreement with and cede to any eventual demands by their ally Italy, who considered the Mediterranean its own sphere of interest and thus (the Reich) was not interested!⁸

With the benefit of hindsight and interpretative synthesis of the facts (correlation of data), I deduce that Hitler would not have invaded and occupied Greece if Italy had not attacked Greece without provocation, and if Greece would not have beaten her. At 3:00 a.m. on 28 October 1940, the Italian Minister to Greece, Emanuele Grazzi, handed an ultimatum to Prime Minister Metaxas demanding free passage of Italian Troops.⁹ Metaxas replied with a “No”; war was de facto declared and hostilities started at the Albanian–Greek frontier. More than 11,000 Jewish Greek soldiers were amongst the Greek troops that took part in the campaign.¹⁰ Greeks dealt the first defeat to an Axis power. Mussolini was humiliated.¹¹ Understandably, Greece invited Britain to assist and British troops landed in Greece.¹² Hitler used this as an additional pretext and on 6 April 1941, invaded Greece from Bulgaria, an Axis ally. Thessaloniki was occupied on 9 April 1941.

Greece was divided into three occupation zones. The Italian comprised most of continental Greece and many islands, the Bulgarian comprised Eastern Macedonia and Thrace except the border zone with Turkey, and the German zone was the rest of the territory which included Thessaloniki and its vicinity.

Before we proceed, the term Jew in Greece should be clarified.¹³ From the first ever temporary Constitution of Epidavros in 1822,¹⁴ the 3^rd Protocol of the Treaties of London in 1830,¹⁵ and with all successive Constitutions to this day, Greece was founded as a state recognizing only Hellenes¹⁶ and no minorities. All religions were/are tolerated and all were/are fully emancipated. All Hellenes have civil rights, no group rights exist. After the conclusion of the Balkan Wars,¹⁷ Thessaloniki became officially Greek with the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest.¹⁸ All of its inhabitants, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Armenians, etc. became Hellenes (=Greeks) with the 1913 Treaty of Athens.¹⁹

Hence, on 9 April 1941, the Jewish population of Thessaloniki was comprised, overwhelmingly, of Jewish Greeks. In addition there were around five hundred Jewish Spaniards, permanent residents of Thessaloniki, and a lesser number of Jewish Italians were also permanent residents of Thessaloniki. In the Italian diplomatic correspondence they are referred as Israeliti Italiani, i.e., Italian Jews, and not the constitutionally-correct Jewish Italians. A minute number of Jews of various other nationalities also lived in the city. It is safe to claim that the overwhelming majority were of Sephardic origin and spoke Ladino (Judeo-Spanish).

The fate of the Jewish Greeks of Thessaloniki as well as of the Bulgarian²⁰ and former Italian-occupied²¹ territories was total annihilation in the German death camps in Poland. Only a few thousand, who fled and hid or were rescued, survived. Of the 48,000 forcibly deported to Auschwitz–Birkenau from Thessaloniki and the surroundings in the spring on 1943, only 2,000 survived.²²

In 2007, the Italian Embassy in Athens published a volume titled Ebrei di Salonicco – 1943, I documenti dell’umanità italiana (Jews of Thessaloniki – 1943. The documents of Italian humanity).²³ Ambassador Gianpaolo Scarante’s salutation of the edition, regrettably only mentions the persecution of the Jews during the Nazi (note: neither German nor Italian) occupation and exalts the courageous humanity demonstrated by many Italians in Greece without further elaboration. Bear in mind that during the same period atrocities were committed by the Royal Italian Army against Greek civilians.²⁴ The latter were literally dying of hunger due to the occupation policies of the Axis allies and the onerous financial burden of compulsory occupation costs imposed on them by the Reich and the Italian Kingdom in Rome.²⁵ It is of interest to put the historic record, regarding Italy and the Jews of Thessaloniki during World War II, in its true context and frame.

Even though Italy was an aggressor and occupier of Greece, she was never prosecuted nor indicted in the Nuremberg trials.²⁶ But Italy was also a perpetrator of crimes of war and crimes against humanity.²⁷ Italy was a de facto dictatorship tolerated by the King and a benign relationship existed between the Italian State and the Vatican. Italy had already committed crimes in Ethiopia;²⁸ and anti–Judaic Laws had been passed as early as 1938,²⁹ which were not rescinded during the brief period of the Badoglio Administration until the capitulation.³⁰ Furthermore, all Italian diplomats in Greece were not on record as opposing the regime and what it represented, during those dark years of occupation.³¹

Surmising from Italian diplomatic documents as presented in both the publication of the Italian Embassy and Daniel Carpi’s work, Italian Diplomatic Documents of the History of the Holocaust in Greece (1941–1943),³² which in itself is another misleading title with respect to its contents, Consul Guelfo Zamboni and his successor, after 18 June 1943, Giuseppe Michele Mario Castruccio, along with Captain Lucillo Merci³³ managed to protect around three hundred and fifty Jews of Thessaloniki who were either Italians or had a connection with Italy. They were provided with temporary Italian citizenship documents. These events took place during the first half of 1943, when Adolf Eichmann’s emissaries were busy deporting all Jewish Greeks to Auschwitz–Birkenau. As I noted above, these individuals were considered first Jews and then Italians, thus being lesser Italians than the non–Jews. Still, the documents and the numbers reveal, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the Italians of Jewish religious descent were protected, shielded, and saved as citizens of their country. Granted, the Italian leaders in Thessaloniki showed zeal in this endeavor; however, they never veered out of their diplomatic competence. They never reached out to Jewish Greeks to distribute something close to Schutz–Pässe as Swede Raoul Wallenberg and Swiss Carl Lutz³⁴ handed out, a year later in 1944, in the thousands in Budapest to Jewish Hungarians facing imminent fatal danger. Furthermore, displaying (personal) courage means that we face danger. I do not see or discern that the aforementioned (Italian) diplomats were facing any real danger to their safety with their actions which were completely within their bounds. Still it was a humanitarian deed albeit very limited in its scope. Therefore, the title should not be Hebrews of Thessaloniki. The correct, and precise one, has to be Jewish Italians of Thessaloniki.³⁵

The names of Zamboni, Castruccio, and, of late, Lucillo Merci, and their exploits have been used as fuel for the supposed humanity of the Italians and, thus, reinforce and maintain the self-perpetuating and ever-propagating myth of the Italiani brava gente (Italians Good People) well into the twenty-first century. In various publications it has been stated that in 1992 Guelfo Zamboni was awarded the honor of Righteous Among the Nations³⁶ by Yad Vashem. This is not true and the fact was confirmed by Yad Vashem.³⁷ Neither retractions nor disclaimers of this claim have appeared. In the Italian press and elsewhere, Zamboni is invariably portrayed as either the Italian Oskar Schindler³⁸ or the (Giorgio) Perlasca³⁹ of Thessaloniki (il Perlasca di Salonicco)⁴⁰ or simultaneously as being named Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem.⁴¹

Based on this assertion, the unsuspecting reader might conclude that both Castruccio and Merci also deserve recognition by Yad Vashem. But they took the stand as witnesses for the defense in the 1957 Athens trial of Dr. Maximilian Merten, a German Nazi war criminal accused of crimes against humanity for the annihilation of the Jewish Greeks of Thessaloniki.⁴²

A spate of publications exalts Merci.⁴³ In 2019, the new book, Salonika 1943: Agony and Death of the Jerusalem of the Balkans by Nico Pirozzi, based on the diary of Lucillo Merci⁴⁴ came out. In another publication, he is referred to as the Perlasca of Trento, in contrast to the Perlasca of Bolzano. It is stated that he saved more than six hundred Jews; in yet another that he saved four hundred and thirty-six Jews. My impression is that in Italy they cannot agree on the number of Jews, or of what nationality, that the two diplomats and Lucillo Merci “saved” in Thessaloniki.⁴⁵ On 21 October 2019, the web site ildenaro.it published a preview of the aforementioned book by Pirozzi.⁴⁶ The title is completely misleading since the subject matter again deals with “. . . a story of courage and humanity” (sic) (Italian, Una storia di coraggio e di umanità). The preview does not mention that Thessaloniki was occupied by the Germans while a large part of Greece was occupied by the Italians. Among the pictures in the book’s preview is one supposedly of Dieter Wisliceny. The person shown is actually his youngest brother, Günther-Eberhardt Wisliceny.⁴⁷ Another picture is captioned in English: “In the photo one of the first convoys of deported Jews departing (sic) from the [railroad] station of Thessaloniki,” (in Italian: “In foto uno dei primi convogli di deportati ebrei in partenza dalla stazione di Salonicco).” The photograph shows Jews being deported to Treblinka from Skopje in Southern Serbia/Yugoslavia, present-day North Macedonia, on March 1943, by the Bulgarian occupiers.⁴⁸ In the photo one can observe clearly among the crowds of deportees, Aleksandar Belev, Commissar of Jewish Affairs of the Bulgarian government at the time.

I define the wrongdoings (=crimes) during the war period as the outcome of war, and the ever-expanding corpus of the myth of Italiani brava gente⁴⁹ as the requisite outcome of the foundational national construct of the post-war image of Italy. Thus, I may define a two-port hybrid network having as independent variables normalized values (=1) of war and brava gente myth. The dependent variables are the ever changing (time dependent) wrongdoings and post-war image of Italy. I deduce (by induction) that the more the brava gente myth is inflated, either more wrongdoings might have been committed during the war or, equivalently, the severity of the known crime might have been far greater than initially reported. (See Addendum.)

It is appropriate to state to what lengths the state and society at large went to reinforce the benevolent physiognomy of the post-war Italian, founding pillar of the national identity. It is interesting also to note, the “gaffes” and/or the complete opposite result of some actions from those intended.

Just a year after the war ended, an amnesty was declared in Italy on 22 June 1946. It was named the Togliatti Amnesty, after the then Italian Minister of Justice and Italian Communist Party member Palmiro Togliatti. Italian Fascists and partisans both were pardoned and given reduced sentences. The amnesty included common crimes as well as political ones committed during World War II. In practice, however, Fascists and collaborators benefited far more from the amnesty than did the partisans. The outcome of this amnesty is very aptly conveyed by the title of Mimmo Franzinelli’s book L’Amnistia Togliatti 1946. Colpo di spugna sui crimini fascisti⁵⁰ (The Togliatti Amnesty 1946. A clean slate for fascist crimes). Following the path of the initiation of institutionalized amnesia is censorship of the Italian episode in the film I vinti (English, The Vanquished), a 1953 drama directed by Michelangelo Antonioni,⁵¹ by the authorities of democratic Republican Italy. The two events have been analyzed by Paolo Saporito.⁵²

The Italian Republic tried not only to distance itself from the fascist past, but also to disassociate itself completely from the Kingdom of Italy as if no continuity existed. Surprisingly though, the young Republic hurried to glorify the same fascist past thus, inadvertently validating the connection between the regimes. One way in which this was achieved was by conferring two bronze medals for valor (sic), one to the flag of the Italian Army Corp of Engineers and one to the 3^d Mixed Engineer Battalion “Julia,” both medals being for the Italian–Greek War 1940-1941.⁵³

In the same vein, in 2012, Ercole Viri, Mayor of Affile, defended a decision by the City Council to use 130,000€ of public funds to honour convicted war criminal Field Marshal Rodolfo Graziani with a mausoleum and memorial park.⁵⁴ I feel confident that the ancient Greek adage of Demosthenes⁵⁵ does not hold true in this case:

πρὸς γὰρ τὸ τελευταῖον ἐκβὰν ἕκαστον τῶν πρὶν ὑπαρξάντων κρίνεται
All previous events are judged according to the last one.

Preventive censorship continues unabated, perhaps to guard the myth of Italiani brava gente. After the 1953 publication of the screenplay of L’Armata s'Agapò about the presence of the Italian army in Greece during the Second World War,⁵⁶ screenwriters Renzo Renzi and Guido Aristarco, both also film critics and essayists, were accused of insulting the armed forces (vilipendio alle forze armate, bringing disgrace to the armed forces) and sentenced to forty-five days in prison. They were arrested and taken to the fortress of Peschiera and, even more incredibly, on 5 October, they were put on trial in Milan, by the military court, not the ordinary judiciary. The reason was that both were former members of the Italian Army, Renzi as lieutenant, Aristarco as a sergeant major, which, in 1953 was still considered “a historical continuity of the fascist army.” The accusation against them was that of “disgracing the armed forces.” Renzi had dared to tell the truth of the lack of honorable behavior of the Italians in Greece, including episodes ranging from the shooting of hostages to the decision to send the cavalry to commit massacre, from the colossal round of prostitution to the overbearing requisition of food. The trial ended with sentences of eight months to Renzi and four and a half months for Aristarco. Renzi was also demoted.

The 1956 book by Ugo Pirro and its 1965 film adaptation, Le Soldatesse (The Camp Followers) directed by Valerio Zurlini tells the story of a young lieutenant in the Italian Army, who in 1942 is ordered to take a truckload of Greek prostitutes from starving Athens under Axis occupation to entertain the troops fighting partisans in Albania. It is distressing, grim and pathetic viewing, not the one that the Italian post-war national narrative would like us to watch. Juxtapose this situation to the claim/statement by Amedeo Giannini in his 1957 paper⁵⁷ about the “sublime-splendid” conduct of the Italian occupiers of Greece towards the Greeks that, “Durante l'occupazione pietà, simpatia, naturale affinità, umanità, giocarono a favore dei greci” (During the occupation compassion, sympathy, natural affinity, humanity played in favor of the Greeks).

Finally, the 1991 Italian film Mediterraneo⁵⁸ tries to reinforce the two parallel myths: that of the brava gente and the depiction of the presumed incompetence of the Italian army during the war. The conferral of medals for valor to branches of this “incompetent” military by the Republic, however, calls for deep meditation. Furthermore, the 1989 BBC Documentary Fascist Legacy⁵⁹ which was never shown on Italian public television since it debunked the prevailing myths, especially the brava gente myth, also presented “uncomfortable” facts.

The Italian war crimes, the perpetrators, and the subsequent trials (if any), including the ones that took place in Greece,⁶⁰ are another chapter in this story. Hundreds of cases were not swept under the carpet but, instead, were hidden in a wooden cabinet, the so-called armoire of shame (Armadio della Vergogna).⁶¹ Some of the criminals contained in the armoire pertain to the Balkans including Greece.

In 2019, almost concurrently with the publication of Pirozzi’s book based on the diary of Lucillo Merci, with the grandiose title, Salonika 1943: Agony and Death of the Jerusalem of the Balkans, the Fondazione Museo della Shoah in Rome presented the temporary exhibition titled “Solo il Dovere Oltre il Dovere. La Diplomazia Italiana di Fronte alla Persecuzione degli Ebrei 1938-1943” (Only duty beyond duty. Italian diplomacy in the face of persecution of the Jews 1938-1943),⁶² curated by Sara Berger and Marcello Pezzetti. The exhibition was completely out of context because, in the first place, the Italians were not blamed for being the occupiers. It also did not provide concrete data about how the diplomats operated beyond duty. Furthermore, the scarcity of candidates for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to come up with such diplomats is immediately apparent from their press release with respect to the exhibition.⁶³ They found only . . . four, none of whom was ever honored as Righteous Among the Nations, rightly so. And out of the four, two are Zamboni and Castruccio. Together with Pirozzi’s book about Merci, the troika is completed. Interesting for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1943, Skopje was in Macedonia (sic), whereas it, as stated above, in Yugoslavia, Southern Serbia. It would have been correct to write present-day North Macedonia.

The exhibit was accompanied by a catalogue assembled by Berger and Pezzetti.⁶⁴ It is noteworthy that they edited another volume just two years ago, titled The Hostile Race: The Nazi and Fascist Antisemitic Propaganda.⁶⁵ This volume is also the catalogue of a temporary exhibition with the same title organized by the Fondazione Museo della Shoah. At least this exhibition shows the true face of Fascist Italy from which the Republic endeavors to dissociate. In addition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was astute enough not to “bombard” viewers with the alleged “humanity” of the Italians. The Ministry tends to forget that Italy was the aggressor, the occupier, and the defeated state. The continuous cultivation of the notion of the “good” Italian versus the “bad” German and of their depiction as saviors of Jews, in general, has to come to an end.

Avanti!
Go on!

Addendum

Correlation(s) between war and wartime wrongdoings with the post-war image of Italy and the ever–present myth of Italiani brava gente are permeating the background canvas of national identity.

As mentioned above, the outcome of the war waged by the aggressor Kingdom of Italy against the Kingdom of Greece and the subsequent occupation of a huge swath of the country (1941–1943) was many wrongdoings. Post-war Italy was/is founded on the premises of democratic values. Nonetheless, since 8 September 1943, and, mainly after the end of World War II in Europe, Italy is basing the benevolent physiognomy of its national identity in large part on the pillar of the myth of Italiani brave gente (Italians good people).

I conjecture that the wrongdoings are ever changing, monotonically non-decreasing, due to the fact that maybe either new war crimes are discovered and/or the severity such as cruelty and brutality, of known crimes was not appropriately acknowledged. Thus, I infer that the wrongdoings are equal to the sum of coefficient it₁₁ X war plus coefficient it₁₂ X Italiani brava gente. And, also, the post–war image of Italy is equal to coefficient it₂₁ X war times coefficient it₂₂ X Italiani brava gente. These coefficients are none other than modified inverse hybrid parameters of the following “two-port network” schematic:

In matrix form the correlations can be written as follows (mod stands for multiplication of terms instead of addition):

In order to get a quasi-quantitative measure of the wrongdoings, during the war and occupation, and, also, if and how sturdy are the foundations of the post-war image of Italy, we have to define the inverse hybrid parameters it₁₁, it₁₂, it₂₁, and it₂₂. For practical purposes we normalize war and brava gente myth to 1 (war=1, brava gente myth=1 continuously). It is obvious that the parameters themselves might be time dependent variables.

Written in equation form:

wrongdoings = it₁₁ X war + it₁₂ X brava gente myth = it₁₁ + it₁₂(t)

and

post–war image of Italy = it₂₁ X war X it₂₂ X brava gente myth = it₂₁(t) X it₂₂(t)

Definition & Calculation of the Hybrid Parameters:

it₁₁
Since war=1 it is obvious that it₁₁ is “equal” to the sum total of the wrongdoings (crimes⁶⁶ etc.) perpetrated during the war and the occupation of Greece and numerically always greater than 1.

it₁₂
The more the brava gente myth is reinforced over time, I assume that the severity of the wartime and occupation-time crimes might have been crueler than initially thought or described. Thus it₁₂(t) = 1/g(t) where g(t)>1 continuous and non-decreasing – its numeric value {of g(t)} is proportional to the brava gente myth corpus (see it₂₂ below).

As a result, if we arbitrarily assign a numeric value to it₁₁ as defined above, then the “value” of the wrongdoings is equal to the value of it₁₁ plus it₁₂(t).

It₂₁
It is understood that the post-war image of Italy suffers from post-war state and/or other actions and comportments, all related to war and occupation-time that tarnish it. it₂₁ is a function of time, it₂₁ (t), always less than 1 (it₂₁ (1) < 1 for all t, and non–increasing). Events and actions that decrease the value of it₂₁, and, thus, “blemish” the image are, among others, cumulatively the following: the conferral of the medals and decorations for valor,⁶⁷ the amnesty of war crimes, the non–prosecution of war criminals, the refusal to extradite war criminals, the 1953 trial of Renzo Renzi and Guido Aristarco by military court for “L'Armata s’Agapò,”⁶⁸ and their conviction, the censorship of films (I Vinti), and the refusal to broadcast the 1989 BBC documentary Fascist Legacy on state TV.

It₂₂
The way the brava gente narrative has been fashioned does more damage than good to the post-war image of Italy. Furthermore, the more the myth persists with any kind of tangible manifestations, e.g., glorification of the war-time comportment of the diplomats, newspaper articles, books, events, and so forth, the more the damage. Thus, it₂₂ is also a non‑increasing function of time, always less than 1, much like it₂₁. It is obvious that Italy’s post-war image is blemished even more.

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¹ I wholeheartedly thank Dr. Judith Roumani for her encouragement to engage in the necessary supplemental research for this work and publishing the narrative of my findings. Her kind invitation comes at a very crucial moment: Holocaust revisionism has become passé. We currently face selective use of facts which are woven on the canvas of state and/or national narratives in order to form or strengthen the pillars of national identity via constructed historical interpretations. A case in point: Italy and its presumed humanity towards persecuted Jews during WWII. I am also grateful and indebted to Dr. Annette B. Fromm whose careful editing and suggestions contributed significantly to the final paper. Thank you Annette.

² Born in Athens, Paul Hagouel holds a BE (summa cum laude), and MS in electrical engineering from New York University (1972, 1973), and a PhD in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California at Berkeley (1976). He is a retired engineer living in Salonika. Hagouel has published in the field of electrical engineering and on the history of the Jews of Greece, the Holocaust, and anti-Semitism. He is a lecturer on the Holocaust in Greece and is a (Greek) Delegate to the Academic Working Group (AWG) of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and a member of the IHRA Committee of Roma Genocide.

³ Paul Isaac Hagouel, The Holocaust of Jewish Greeks and Jews of Thessaloniki: Italian truncated and selective Humanity, Spanish adaptable Citizenship, (Talk and Presentation), Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference Diplomacy and the Deportation of Jews in 1943, Tuesday, 27 January 2015, Skopje at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Co–organizers: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Skopje, Diplomatic Club – Skopje, Memorial Center of the Holocaust, Skopje, Institute of National History, Skopje, International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Berlin. Includes 2017 Update and Addenda.

⁴ Paul Isaac Hagouel, The Annihilation of Jewish Greeks in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace during WWII: Balkan Particularities, Facts, Memory, Talk and Presentation at the International Conference Jews across the Balkans – History, Society and Culture Marking 70 years since the destruction of the Jews of the Balkans (1943-2013), 1 October 2013, Skopje, Academy of Sciences and Arts. Co–organizers: Bar-Ilan University, The Aharon and Rachel Dahan Center for Culture, Society and Education in the Sephardic Heritage, Ashkelon Academic College, Salti Center for Ladino Studies (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁵ David I. Kertzer, 2014, The Pope and Mussolini: The secret history of Pius XI and the rise of Fascism in Europe, Random House: New York.

⁶ http://www.logiastarata.gr/2014/08/15-1940.html (in Greek) (accessed 15 June 2020). (Thema Newsroom), August 15 1940: The torpedoing of the Greek cruiser “Elli” (PHOTOS), 15 August 2018, themanews.com by protothema (accessed 15 June 2020); Philip Chrysopoulos, August 15, 1940: Italians Torpedo Greek Cruiser ‘Elli’ as a Precursor to War, 14 August 2018, https://greece.greekreporter.com/ (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁷ L’Agression de l’Italie contre La Grèce, Documents Diplomatiques, 1940, Ministère Royal des Affaires Étrangères, Athènes, ioannismetaxas.gr/AgressionItalienneIndex.pdf (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁸ Auswärtiges Amt, 1939/41 Nr.7, Dokumente zum Konflikt mit Jugoslawien und Griechenland, Siebtes Weißbuch der Deutschen Regierung, Archiv Edition. Das Buch dient dokumentarischen und wissenschaftlichen Zwecken, die Auswahl der Dokumente findet nicht die ungeteilte Zustimmung des Verlags. Reihe Kriegsursachenforschung, Band 8, Faksimile der vom Auswärtigen Amt der Deutschen Regierung herausgegebenen Originalausgabe, wie sie 1941 in Berlin gedruckt wurde.
Page 193, Nr. 137, Sonnleiter, Fuschl, den 27. August 1940, Aufzeichnung über den Empfang Griechischen Gesandten in Berlin durch den des Reichsminister des Auswärtigen von Ribbentrop am 26. August 1940 In Fuschl; Also in Greek: Auswärtiges Amt, 1939/41 Nr.7, 1941, Επίσημα Έγγραφα επί της ρήξεως με την Γιουγκοσλαυΐαν και την Ελλάδα, Berlin.

⁹ Ibid. 7, pp. 134 & 134.

¹⁰ My father Leon Hagouel was a Lance Corporal. He was slightly wounded.

¹¹ MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, 1939-1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy's Last War, 2004, Cambridge University Press: London, pp. 189-230; Edwin Packer, Italian Fiasco, the Attack on Greece, pp. 256-272, and Olivia Manning, The Greeks at War, Greece, October/December 1940, pp. 273-275, in History of the Second World War-Part 10, 1973. eds. Sir Basil Liddell Hart and Barrie Pitt, Marshall Cavendish USA Ltd.

¹² Sheila Lawlor, Churchill and the politics of War, 1940-1941, 2006, New York: Cambridge University Press, Part 3; The Greek Decision (January to March 1941), pp. 165-259.

¹³ Paul Isaac Hagouel, The Jews of Thessaloniki: Legacies of the Past, Shaping of Traditions, Challenges for the Future, Invited talk and presentation, International Conference: The Holocaust: Diachronic and Interdisciplinary Approaches, Department of Social Theology - School of Theology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, 5 October 2017; and fully modern identity in:Maria Ch. Sidiropoulou, Οι Έλληνες Εβραίοι στη Σύγχρονη Ελλάδα: Η Περιδίνηση στη Νεωτερικότητα, (Greek Jews in Contemporary Greece: Swirling Paths to Modernity) (in Greek), 2020, Thessaloniki: University of Macedonia Press.

¹⁴ http://norfid.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/nomos-epidaurou-proswrinon-politeuma-ths-ellados-b-e8nikh-suneleusis-astros-1823.pdf (in Greek) (accessed 15 June 2020).

¹⁵ A _ Papers relative to the Affairs of Greece, Protocols of Conferences Held in London, 1830, London: House of Commons, p. 316; The London Conferences, 1830, No. 25, Protocol, No. 3, of the Conference held at the Foreign Office on the 3rd of February, 1830. Present: The Plenipotentiaries of Great Britain; France; and Russia.

¹⁶ Hellenes are Greeks in Greek, see Why is Greece called Hellas and Who are the Hellenes? 2017, https://greekerthanthegreeks.com/ (accessed 15 June 2020).

¹⁷ Jacob Gould Schurman, 2008, The Balkan Wars 1912-1923, 3rd, Auckland: The Floating Press: ; Richard C. Hall, The Balkan Wars 1912-1923 Prelude to the First World War, 2000, New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis.

¹⁸ Treaty of Bucharest:Ratification of Bucharest Treaty of 28Jul-10August 1913, Government Gazette of the Kingdom of Greece, Fascicle A, Nr. 217, 28 October 1913, Athens, www.et.gr. (accessed 15 June 2020). Note: All Laws, Directives, Presidential decrees etc. are freely accessible (Article 7, Law 3861/2010 for Transparency in Public Administration) at the Website of the Hellenic Government Gazette: www.et.gr.

¹⁹ Ratification of the Peace Treaty (in Greek & French), Government Gazette of the Kingdom of Greece, Issue A, Number. 229, 14 November 1913, Athens, www.et.gr. Note: It is the 1913 Treaty of Athens (accessed 15 June 2020). After Italy capitulated, all Jewish Italians that remained in Greece (mainly Athens) were automatically considered just plain Jews for the German Occupation Authorities and the destiny reserved for them was deportation and annihilation at Auschwitz–Birkenau if caught; Danny Bennahmias, private communication & conversation, 1974, Oakland, CA; Rebecca Camhi Fromer, The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias, Sonderkommando, 1993, Tuscaloosa & London: The University of Alabama Press.

²⁰ The Sephardic Jewish Greeks from Eastern Macedonia and Thrace were also deported and all were annihilated at Treblinka. Ibid. 4.

²¹ Note: After Italy capitulated, all Jewish Italians that remained in Greece (mainly Athens) were automatically considered just plain Jews for the German Occupation Authorities and the destiny reserved for them was deportation and annihilation at Auschwitz–Birkenau if caught.
Danny Bennahmias, private communication & conversation, 1974, Oakland, CA; Rebecca Camhi Fromer, The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias, Sonderkommando, 1993, Tuscaloosa & London: The University of Alabama Press.

²² Paul Isaac Hagouel, The History of the Jews of Salonika & the Holocaust – an Exposé, 2013. Sephardic Horizons, Vol. 3, No. 3. https://www.sephardichorizons.org/Volume3/Issue3/hagouel.html.

²³ Ebrei di Salonicco, 1943: I Documenti dell'Umanità Italiana, 2007, eds. Jannis Chrisafis, Alessandra Coppola, Antontio Ferrari; translation by Flora Molcho, Εβραίοι της Θεσσαλονίκης: τα ντοκουμέντα της ιταλικής ανθρωπιάς. Athens: Ambasciata d’Italia in Atene (accessed 15 June 2020). This deluxe edition is exhaustively reviewed and criticized by Massimo Peri in Ebrei di Salonicco. Appunti sull’“Umanità italiana,” Studi Storici, Apr-Jun 2007, Anno 48, No. 2, pp. 341-359. This is criticized by Alessandra Coppola, one of the editors of the volume with a second rebuttal by Massimo Peri in Sugli ebrei di Salonicco, Studi Storici, Anno 48, Oct-Dec 2007, No. 4, pp. 1155-1164. Mrs. Coppola chastises Mr. Peri using as an irrefutable argument the supposed [Yad Vashem] “righteousness” of Guelfo Zamboni.

²⁴ For a description of the massacre at Domenikon, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domenikon_massacre (accessed 15 June 2020).
Lorenzo Guadagnucci, Domenikon, i vuoti di memoria degli “italiani brava gente,” Volerelaluna, 14/03/2019 (accessed 15 June 2020); Filippo Focardi, Italy’s Amnesia over War Guilt: The “Evil Germans” Alibi, 2015, Mediterranean Quarterly, 25:4, pp. 5-26.
Grecia 1943: quei fascisti stile SS. Domenikon come Marzabotto. Oltre 150 uomini fucilati per rappresaglia. Ora un documentario alza il velo sulle stragi del nostro esercito. Occultate, di Enrico Arosio, L'Espresso, 28 febbraio 2008 (accessed 15 June 2020); 16 febbraio - http://www.sergiolepri.it/16-febbraio-1943/, A Domenikon, un piccolo villaggio della Grecia centrale, 150 greci giovani e vecchi vengono fucilati dalle truppe italiane di occupazione come rappresaglia per la morte di nove nostri soldati in un’imboscata di partigiani. Che cosa c’è di vero nel mito “Italiani brava gente”? (accessed 15 June 2020). ΜΑΥΡΗ ΒΙΒΛΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΚΑΤΟΧΗΣ, Schwarzbuches Der Besatzung, Zweite ergänzte und korrigierte Ausgabe, Ausschuss der Ausgabe, Petros Antaios, Panagiotis Aronis, Manolis Glesos, Athina Kakolyri, Petros Kouloufakos, Jannis Kyriakakos, Frangiskos Konstantarakis, G.A. Mangakis, Kostas Papajannakis, Haralambos Roupas, Athens, 2006, Nationalrat für die Entschädigungsforderungen Griechenlands an Deutschland; Lidia Santarelli, Muted violence: Italian war crimes in occupied Greece, 2004, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 9(3), pp. 280–299; Criminali di guerra italiani (accessed 15 June 2020); Crimini di guerra italiani in Grecia, 1943 (accessed 15 June 2020); La guerra sporca di Mussolini 4/6 (accessed 15 June 2020); Mussolini's dirty war (2020 personal upload), (YouTube upload no longer available). M. Cherif Bassiouni, Crimes Against Humanity, Historical Evolution and Contemporary Application, 2011, New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 715.

²⁵ Σωτήριος Γκοτζαμάνης, Κατοχικόν Δάνειον και Δαπάναι Κατοχής, 1954, Θεσσαλονίκη, pp. 23, 24, Sotirios Gotzamanis, Occupation Loan and Occupation Expenses, Thessaloniki (in Greek), private publication.

²⁶ Judgment of the international military tribunal for the trial of German major war criminals, with the dissenting opinion of the Soviet member. Presented by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Parliament by Command of his Majesty, House of Commons, [Cmd. 6964] Miscellaneous No. 12 (1946), 30 September-1 October, 1946, Nuremberg, London; Michele Battini, Sins of Memory: Reflections on the lack of an Italian Nuremberg and the administration of international justice after 1945, 2004, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 9(3), pp. 349–362; Michele Battini, The Missing Italian Nuremberg: Cultural Amnesia and Postwar Politics, 2007, London: Palgrave MacMillan; Stated on p. 98: The Italian call to exercise the right to try “the human monsters,” from whom there had been, at the opportune moment, a break, risked, however, becoming counterproductive and pushing the Allies to react by resolutely pursuing those responsible for the “Italian atrocities” in Greece and the Balkans. During 1946, the national authorities began to act with greater prudence without making too many demands that could provoke sharp reactions in countries like the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Greece, which were determined to insist on the handing over of the Italian military guilty of war crimes.

²⁷ War criminals were never extradited to Greece; Filippo Focardi & Lutz Klinkhammer, La questione dei «criminali di guerra» italiani e una Commissione di inchiesta dimenticata, Contemporanea, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 497-528, luglio 2001 (see p. 31 for the Greek request for extradition of Italian War Criminals).

²⁸ Ian Campbell, The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy’s National Shame, 2017, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Richard Pankhurst, Italian Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia: A History of Their Discussion, from the League of Nations to the United Nations (1936–1949), 1999, Northeast African Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1-2 (New Series), pp. 83-140 (accessed 15 June 2020).

²⁹ Le leggi antiebraiche in Italia 1938-1945, Materiali della Giornata di studio-formazione in occasione del 70° anniversario (Bologna, 6 novembre 2008) a cura di Maria Laura Marescalchi (accessed 15 June 2020).

³⁰ Iael Nidam-Orvieto, Fascist Italy and the Jews: Myth versus Reality, 2010 (accessed 15 June 2020) Fascist Italy and the Jews: Myth versus Reality part 1; and Fascist Italy and the Jews: Myth versus Reality (part II) -  Italian Racial Laws of 1938 (Leggi Razziali), actually Anti-Judaic Laws, were only fully abrogated in 1987; Valerio Strinati, Leggi antiebraiche:quando furono abrogate, Patria Independente, 24 April 2018 (accessed 15 June 2020); L’Abrogazione Delle Leggi Razziali In Italia (Testimonianze), Ristampa Ananstatica del Volume “L’Abrogazione delle Legge Razzialia in Italia (1943- 1987). “Reintegrazione dei Cittadini_ Rotorno ai Valori del Risorgimento” E Degli Atti del Convegno di Presentazione dell’Opera, Senato della Repubblica, Roma, 2018 (accessed 15 June 2020).

³¹ Davide Rodogno, Italiani brava gente? Fascist Italy’s Policy Toward the Jews in the Balkans, April 1941–July 1943, 2005, European History Quarterly, Vol. 35(2), 213–240.

³² Daniel Carpi, Italian Diplomatic Documents of the History of the Holocaust in Greece (1941–1943), 1999, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University; Also: Daniel Carpi, Nuovi Documenti Per la Storia Dell'Olocausto in Grecia: L'Atteggiamento Degle Italiani (1941—1943), in Tel Aviv University _ Michael: On the History of the Jews in the Diaspora, 1981, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University pp. 119-200.

³³ Excerpts from the Salonika Diary of Lucillo Merci (February-August 1943), 1987, compiled by Joseph Rochlitz with introduction by Menachem Shelach. Yad Vashem Studies, vol. XVII. I thank Dr. Sharon Ganor of Yad Vashem Publications for her help in acquiring the above paper.

³⁴ Carl Lutz - The Forgotten Hero, (Der vergessene Held), 2014, a film documentary by Daniel von Aarburg; Carl Lutz, an Appenzell diplomat in Budapest, saved 62,000 persecuted Jewish Hungarians from death during World War II. His humanitarian action is considered the greatest civil rescue operation of Jews during the Holocaust (accessed 15 June 2020); Agnes Hirschi, Charlotte Schallié, and Timothy Snyder, Under Swiss Protection: Jewish Eyewitness Accounts from Wartime Budapest, eds. Agnes Hirschi and Charlotte Schallié, 2017, Ibid. Verlag, Hannover; Alexander Grossman, Nur das Gewissen, Carl Lutz und seine Budapester Aktion Geschichte und Porträt, 1986, Verlag Im Waldgut.

³⁵ Pier Cesare Ioly Zorattini, Michele Luzzati, Michele Sarfatti (a cura di), Studi sul mondo L’evacuazione nel 1943 da Salonicco degli ultimi ebrei italiani e degli ebrei italiani ‘provvisori’: contesto, questioni e numeri, 2012, Studi sul mondo sefardita in memoria di Aron Leoni, Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki, pp. 251-276, Firenze (accessed 15 June 2020 here).

³⁶ Paul Isaac Hagouel, Οι Δίκαιοι των Εθνών (& σύγκριση ενεργειών Διπλωματών στη Θεσσαλονίκη το 1943 με αυτές των Διπλωματών στη Βουδαπέστη το 1944) (The Righteous among the Nations & Comparison between the actions of Diplomats in Thessaloniki in 1943 with those of Diplomats in Budapest in 1944) (in Greek), lecture and presentation during the seminar for primary and secondary school teachers on How to Teach the Holocaust in Greece, organized by the Jewish Museum of Greece, Friday, 4 December 2015, Center for History of Thessaloniki (accessed 15 June 2020); Ambassador Photini Tomai, Οι Έλληνες Δίκαιοι των Εθνών – The Greek Righteous, (in Greek), 2015, Athens: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Μίλητος).

³⁷ Personal Communication with Ms. Irena Steinfeldt, Yad Vashem, Director of the Department of the Righteous, 29 November 2015.

³⁸ Guelfo Zamboni, lo schindler di salonicco, La Repubblica, 25 Settembre 2008 (accessed 15 June 2020).

³⁹ Enrico Deaglio, La banalità del bene _ Storia di Giorgio Perlasca, 2018, Milano: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore.

⁴⁰ La Burocrazia al Servizio del Bene, Zamboni, il Perlasca di Salonicco, Dalla Grecia una onorificenza ai rappresentanti d'Italia per l'impegno contro le deportazioni degli ebrei, Corriere Della Sera, 4 February, 2008 (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁴¹ Guelfo Zamboni, Comune di Santa Sofia, 24 marzo 2019 (accessed 15 June 2020); Cronaca, Santa Sofia: monumento e spettacolo per Guelfo Zamboni, RomagnaOggi, 09 febbraio 2009 (accessed 15 June 2020); guelfo zamboni, un giusto italiano, June 5, 2012. Zamboni is portrayed as a Righteous among the Nations in this video documentary (accessed 15 June 2020), Ibio Paolucci, La tragedia degli ebrei di Salonicco, pp. 52-60 (Zamboni “Righteous” on p. 57) (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁴² Dr. Wolfgang Klein, Der Merten-Prozeß, 2010. See also here (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁴³ Adam Smulevich, Memoria Salonicco, una storia da portare alla luce, Pubblicato in Attualità il 19/02/2019, (book by Nico Pirozzi, Salonicco 1943. Agonia e Morte Della Gerusalemme dei Balcani, moked, il portale dell'ebraismo italiano, 2019 (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁴⁴ Nico Pirozzi, Salonicco 1943. Agonia e Morte Della Gerusalemme dei Balcani, 2019, Edizioni dell’Ippogrifo, https://www.nicopirozzi.it/pubblicazioni-15.html , Sarno.

⁴⁵ Paolo Campostrini, Il bolzanino Lucillo Merci strappò alle camere a gas 436 ebrei di Salonicco. La storia svelata. Al Consolato falsificava documenti per evitare la deportazione in Polonia, Alto Adige, 15 febbraio 2020 (accessed 15 June 2020). Lucillo Merci, un libro sul “Perlasca bolzanino,” Alto Adige, 18 febbraio 2020 (accessed 15 June 2020). Lucillo Merci, il Perlasca trentino che strappò oltre 600 ebrei alla morte, Trentino, 15 febbraio 2020 (accessed 15 June 2020); Cinquinta Italiani, Regia di Flaminia Lubin, 2009, Prodotto da Francesco Pamphili (under the patronage of: Assessorato alla Cultura del Comune di Roma, Comunità Ebraica di Roma, Consolato Generale d’Italia New York, Centro Simon Wiesenthal (accessed 15 June 2020); See p. 13: Circa 15,000 Ebrei sono stati salvati in Grecia, grazie agli sforzi degli Italiani (Around 15,000 Jews were saved in Greece, thanks to the efforts (sic) of the Italians.) Out of a total prewar Jewish Greek population of 77,000 only 10,000 survived.

⁴⁶ Salonicco 1943, e l’Italia in camicia nera salvò centinaia di ebrei. Nel libro di Pirozzi una storia dimenticata, da ildenaro.it, 21 Ottobre 2019 (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁴⁷ For brief information on brothers Günther-Eberhardt Wisliceny and Dieter Wisliceny see post and discussion, 2002 to 2016, on web based Axis History Forum (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁴⁸ Paul Isaac Hagouel, Balkan Jews in the 21st Century, Bridge to Friendship and Understanding (The Holocaust in the Southern Balkans), 2013, Conference Proceedings Scientific Forum 70 years from the Deportation of Jews from Skopje, Bitola & Štip. Co–organizers: Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute of National History, Holocaust Fund, 12 March 2013, Skopje.

⁴⁹ Nicolas G. Virtue, Religion, race, and the nation in La Tradotta del Fronte Giulio, 1942–1943, 2018, Modern Italy, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 373-393.

⁵⁰ Mimmo Franzinelli, L'Amnistia Togliatti 1946. Colpo di spugna sui crimini fascisti, pages 420, Universale Economica laFeltrinelli, Milano, 2016 and also in: Paolo Caroli, 2017, La Giiustizia di Transizion in Italia, L’esperienza dopo la seconda guerra mondiale, doctoral dissertation, Trento (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁵¹ Dennis Lim, A Second Look: Michelangelo Antonioni’s ‘I Vinti,’ The Los Angeles Times, April 3, 2011.

⁵² Paolo Saporito, Cultural memory against institutionalised amnesia: the Togliatti amnesty and Antonioni’s I vinti, 2018, Modern Italy, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 299-313.

⁵³ Italian Republic, Ministry of Defense, Order: Certificate of Conferral of the Bronze Medal for Military Valor to the Flag of the Army Corp of Engineers (Albanian-Greek Front, 28 October 1940), 21 May 1948 (37 – Brevetto di concessione della Medaglia di Bronzo al Valor Militare alla Bandiera dell'Arma del Genio (Fronte albano-greco, 28 ottobre 1940) 21 maggio 1948]. Italian Republic, Ministry of Defense, Order: Certificate of Conferral of the Bronze Medal for Military Valor to the Third Mixed Engineer Battalion “Julia” (Greek Front, 5 November 1940 - 23 April 1941), 20 October 1948 (35 – Brevetto di concessione della Medaglia di Bronzo al Valor Militare al III Battaglione Misto Genio «Julia» (Fronte Greco, 5 novembre 1940 - 23 aprile 1941) 20 ottobre 1948]. To the best of my knowledge these medals were never retracted. By the way, since I found the certificates they have been removed from the web!

⁵⁴ Field Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, articles including the one in The Telegraph. Mayor defends monument to fascist leader convicted of war crimes. An Italian Fascist leader convicted of using poisonous gas against enemy soldiers in Africa was “not a war criminal,” said the mayor of the town which has erected a monument in his honor, The Telegraph, Josephine McKenna, 2 September 2012, Rome.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9515780/Mayor-defends-monument-to-fascist-leader-convicted-of-war-crimes.html (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁵⁵ Jeremy Trevet (Translated with introduction and notes), Michael Gagarin (Series Editor), 2011, Demosthenes Speeches 1-17, Vol. 14, The Oratory of Classical Greece, p. 35, 1st Olynthiac paragraph 11 (previous benefit - eventual outcome).

⁵⁶ “L’Armata s’agapò” e l'arresto Renzo Renzi e Guido Aristarco, La Stonzata di Pulcinella, 12 June 2019 (accessed 15 June 2020); MISACCH, L’Armata s’Agapò - Quando la politica piega la giustizia – Storia di un arresto per un articolo che raccontava la verità sulla Campagna di Grecia (When justice bows to politics), 2016, Gruppo Alpini "Gen. Pietro Zaglio" - Salce (BL), (Articolo di Roberto De Nart, per il Col Maòr n. 3 del 2007), 2016 (accessed 15 June 2020). Claudio Santini (dalla rivista “I Portici”), L’armata s’agapò: repressione e censura nell’Italia del dopoguerra, Pubblicato il marzo 27, 2016 da kiba1957, La Resistenza tradita (accessed 15 June 2020); Clarissa Clò, Mediterraneo Interrupted: Perils and Potentials of Representing Italy’s Occupations in Greece and Libya Through Film (Renzo Renzi trial 1953 for L’armata s’agapò), 2009, Italian Culture, Vol. XXVII, No. 2, pp. 99–115; Lisa Bregantin, L’occupazione dimenticata: Gli italiani in Grecia 1941-1943 (The “forgotten” history of the Italian Occupation of Greece 1941-1943), 2007, Tesi di dottorato, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia (accessed 15 June 2020); Claudio Santini (dalla rivista “I Portici”), L’armata s’agapò: repressione e censura nell’Italia del dopoguerra). Quei Bui Anni Cinquanta del Caso Renzi-Aristarco, La Repubblica, 17 Maggio 1985 (15 June 2020).

⁵⁷ Amedeo Giannini, I rapporti italo≈ellenici (1860-1955), 2007, Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali: Maria Grazia Melchionni, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 389-445, (Luglio-Settembre 1957) see page 430.

⁵⁸ Saverio Giovacchini, Soccer with the Dead: Mediterraneo, the Legacy of Neorealismo, and the Myth of Italiani Brava Gente, 2007, pp. 55-69, in Michael Paris, ed., Repicturing the Second World War: Representations in Film and Television, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

⁵⁹ Fascist Legacy, 1989, BBC Documentary, (both parts accessed in www.youtube.com (accessed 15 June 2020): part1 and part2 (in Italian).

⁶⁰ III. La seconda guerra mondiale, 1. I crimini italiani in Jugoslavia, Grecia e Albania, 2018, in Alberto Stramaccioni, Crimini di guerra: Storia e memoria del caso italiano, Gius. Laterza & Figli Spa, pp. 46-50; Filippo Focardi, Criminali a piede libero. La mancata “Norimberga italiana,” 2010, in Memoria e rimozione. I crimini di guerra del Giappone e dell’Italia, a cura di Giovanni Contini, Filippo Focardi e Marta Petricioli, viella, pp. 150-161; Piero Borgna, Angelo Maneschi, Italiani,“brava gente”? La Pagina Nera Dei Crimini Italiani di Guerra All’Estero, Dagli studi piu recenti emerge il volto spesso sanguinoso del nostro colonialismo in Africa e nei Balcani dopo l'occupazione della Grecia e della Jugoslavia, nel periodo 1940-43. La pagina nera dei crimini italiani di guerra, Quaderni Savonesi, no.12, pp. 71-100, maggio 2009 (accessed 15 June 2020). Claudio Fogu, Italiani brava gente: The Legacy of Fascist Historical Culture on Italian Politics of Memory, pp. 147-176 in Richard Ned Lebow, Wulf Kansteiner and Claudio Fogu, eds, The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe, 2006, Durham and London: Duke University Press, see p. 169; Angelo Del Boca, Italiani, brava gente? Un mito duro a morire, Milan: Neri Pozza Editore, 2005; Marta Petrusewicz, The hidden pages of contemporary Italian history: war crimes, war guilt and collective memory, 2004, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 9(3), pp. 269–270; Filippo Focardi and Lutz Klinkhammer, 2004, The question of Fascist Italy's war crimes: the construction of a self-acquitting myth (1943 – 1948), 2004, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 9(3), pp. 330–348; Paolo Filo Della Torre, 'Italia, Ecco i Tuoi Crimini di Guerra,' la Repubblica, 10 Novembre 1989 (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁶¹ Franco Giustolisi, L’Armadio della vergogna, 2019, Rome: Nutrimenti; Vanessa Roghi, L’armadio della vergogna, La ricerca, 24 Febbraio 2016 (accessed 15 June 2020); Memoria, Franco Giustolisi: Il Secondo Armadio Della Vergogna, Voci e Volti Della Nonviolenza, 2009, No. 295 (accessed 15 June 2020); Dino Messina, Il secondo armadio della vergogna, Corriere della Sera, 6 Luglio 2008 (accessed 15 June 2020); Mimmo Franzinelli, Le stragi nascoste: Larmadio della vergogna impunità e rimozione dei crimini di guerra nazifascisti 1943-2001, 2002, Milano: Mondadori.

⁶² Previous similar exhibitions and publications of Spain: Visados para la libertad, Diplomáticos Españoles ante el Holocausto, 2008, Madrid: Ministerio de de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación and Casa Sefarad Israel.
http://pendientedemigracion.ucm.es/info/dptoants/curriculos/catalogo_visadosDic08.pdf (accessed 15 June 2020); Mas alla del Deber, La respuesta humanitaria del Servicio Exterior frente al Holocausto , November 2014, Madrid (accessed 15 June 2020),
http://www.exteriores.gob.es/Portal/es/SalaDePrensa/ElMinisterioInforma/Paginas/Noticias/20141126_Ministerio1.aspx (accessed 15 June 2020),
http://www.exteriores.gob.es/Portal/es/SalaDePrensa/Multimedia/Publicaciones/Documents/2014_Catalogoexposicionmasalladeldeber.pdf (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁶³ Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Duty Only, Beyond Duty – Stories of four diplomats who, in the face of the Holocaust, chose to resist, postdate 19 April 2019 (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁶⁴ Sara Berger and Marcello Pezzetti, Solo il dovere oltre il dovere. La diplomazia italiana di fronte alla persecuzione degli ebrei 1938-1943, 2019, Roma: Gangemi Editore.

⁶⁵ Marcello Pezzetti, Sara Berger, La razza nemica: La propaganda antisemita nazista e fascista, 2017, Roma: Gangemi Editore.

⁶⁶ Da “Fascist Legacy” A “L’Olocausto Rimosso:” Il Libro Ritrovato di Michael Palumbo, dieci febbraio millenovecentoquarantasette, 10 febbraio 1947, Posted on 5 Febbraio 2020, (accessed 15 June 2020); “Il documentario Fascist Legacy (l’eredità fascista) dello storico italoamericano Michael Palumbo e dell’inglese Ken Kirby ha posto fine per sempre alla leggenda degli “italiani brava gente.” Ma che si trattasse, appunto di un mito senza alcun fondamento lo sapevano bene non solo gli storici, ma le vittime (libiche, etiopiche, greche, jugoslave) e, com’è ovvio, gli stessi carnefici.” “The documentary Fascist Legacy by the Italian-American historian Michael Palumbo and the Englishman Ken Kirby has put an end to the legend of “Italians good people” forever. Not only historians, but also the victims (Libyan, Ethiopian, Greek, Yugoslav) and, of course, the executioners themselves, knew well that this was a myth without any foundation.”

⁶⁷ Extraordinary supplement to the “Official Gazette” (of the Italian Republic), no. 20 of 26 January 1949, Ministry of Defense – Army, Awards for military valor, Decree of 23 January 1947, The following decorations for military valor are conferred. Gazzetta Ufficiale pdf - Gazzetta Storica - Repubblica Parte 1 n. 20 del 26-01-1949 (Supplemento Straordinario), (accessed 15 June 2020).

⁶⁸ The script for which Renzi and Aristarco have been arrested “L'Armata S'Agapò” , 19 September 1953, L'Unità, p. 6 (accessed 15 June 2020).