Michele Sarfatti

I confini di una persecuzione
Il fascismo e gli ebrei fuori d’Italia (1938-1943)

Roma: Viella, 2023. ISBN: 979-12-5469-197-7

Reviewed by Andrea Yaakov Lattes¹

This latest work by Michele Sarfatti, a prolific historian and scholar of Jews in Italy during the 20th century and the years of Fascism and longtime director of the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center in Milan, aims to answer some vital questions, such as: what was the attitude of Fascist authorities towards Jews in the territories Italy occupied before and during the Second World War? In these countries, including Libya, Ethiopia, Croatia, and the Greek islands, how was Italian legislation which discriminated against Jews applied?

In this volume, Sarfatti analyzes in detail official documents, such as legislative acts, and semi-official and often unpublished documentation, like specific directives, organizational charts, dispatches issued by Italian authorities, and correspondence between various offices, both central ones resident in Rome and those located outside the peninsula, enacted during the years from the racial laws’ promulgation in 1938 till Mussolini’s fall in 1943 and the consequent armistice between the Italians and the Allies. The author tries to identify the most useful episodes and events to understand what happened in each geographical area in order to develop some generalities. By making use of this material, Sarfatti manages to reconstruct a broad overview of the multiple decisions as well as the different policies applied by Italian colonial authorities. Some interesting conclusions are reached.

One finding concerns the many different treatments reserved for Jews in territories outside Italy, which varied from place to place. This diversity was the result of multiple tendencies and interests, along with the intertwining of radical anti-Semitism, colonial and imperial policies, a racist concept of supremacy, Italian political and economic aspirations in the Mediterranean and Europe, and finally war developments. In fact, imperial policy in the colonies and economic interests often prevailed over racist policy towards Jews, so whenever these were useful to the expansive Italian economy, racial discrimination took a back seat. Furthermore, the anti-Jewish legislation already in force within the Kingdom of Italy was not automatically extended to the African colonies, to the Italian Aegean islands, to Albania, and then to other territories annexed during the war. In each of these areas, persecution of Jews was marked by specific chronological developments and implementation methods of different intensities. For example, in Italian East Africa, today’s Ethiopia and Somalia, anti-Semitic legislation was consciously modified by the authorities in a less restrictive sense. Even migration of Jews from Italy was permitted. Similarly, Italian authorities in Libya chose not to exclude Jewish firms from public procurements.

Another interesting issue featured in Sarfati’s research is the hierarchy of many "races" developed by fascist ideology. In fact, at the beginning of 1939, a particular “Italian Libyan citizenship” was established in order to create a category of "citizens" who were legally inferior to those on the peninsula. Subsequently, Catholic Slovenes were considered inferior to Italians. And in Ethiopia where a hierarchical racist scale between white Jews, black Beta Israel Jews, or Falashàs, and other non-Jewish blacks existed, a class of non-citizen subjects was thought up.

Another consideration concerns the policy Italian authorities ordered in May 1940 to confine all the foreign Jews , that is without Italian citizenship, in these regions in camps in order to create a physical separation and to prepare for their expulsion. As a consequence, such a site was created for "protective" purposes on the island of Rab, today in Croatia, to confine not only Jews but also Communists. On the other hand, in Libya authorities intended to “quell” Jews from the Cyrenaica region, the district around Benghazi, and ordered them confined in the infamous Giado concentration camp , an old military base in the middle of the desert, where mortality rose to about twenty percent.

The volume is composed of ten chapters dealing with different methodologies and policies adopted by the Italian authorities. Starting precisely from the analysis of the legal system in force in each one of the many colonies, Sarfatti describes the social situation of Jews who lived in these territories. Italy extended its political and cultural influence also to other European countries beyond its borders where Jews of Italian origin lived, which often aligned their racist and anti-Semitic policies with those of Italy or Germany, such as Croatia, dominated by the Ustaša. Another significant chapter concerns attitudes towards Jews who did not hold Italian citizenship and were prevented from entering national borders. In these situations, it was often the military commanders of the different occupied areas who had to deal with relevant German commanders, manage complex situations, and decide the fate of people case-by-case. Then, when war broke out, many foreign Jews tried to take refuge within Italian territories in order to request protection, although only few were successful. When news of the extermination camps began to arrive from Poland, Italian authorities found themselves faced with the dilemma of whether or not to hand over the Jews to the German authorities. This and other many other situations are analyzed in this volume.

As a result, this book gives the reader a broad, heterogeneous, and complex overview of reality. It is indeed well documented, and although the texts studied may seem rather difficult to the reader, it is written in a compelling and very fluent manner, which is no small feat.

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1 Yaakov Andrea Lattes, PhD, has taught at the Department of Jewish History of Bar Ilan University, Israel; at Gratz College, Philadelphia; and currently teaches at Yaad Academic College, Tel Aviv. His research deals with early modern society, in particular regarding Jews in Italy, and the social and political developments of Italian Jewry in the present.