Tricia, If you were unlucky enough to be around in Italy in the twenties and thirties you didn't have much choice as to whether you supported the Fascist regime or not. There were four options - you supported it openly, gave it your tacit support but without any enthusiasm, emigrated, or opposed it and were sent into exile within the national boundaries. There was the obligatory sabato fascista (Fascist Saturday) with the scope of indoctrinating the children and giving the youth a military training... I won't go on. It wasn't simply a question of 'many Italians became fascists' - it was what happened to you if you openly declared that you weren't one that was the problem. Vitellino
And yet many french Jews, and Jews from other occupied European countries, fled to some south eastern parts of France, which the Italians had taken over. They were temporarily protected: Wiki: "Italian-occupied France was an area of south-eastern France occupied by Fascist Italy in two stages during World War II. The occupation lasted from June 1940 until the Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces on September 8, 1943, when Italian troops on French soil retreated under pressure from the Germans."
The Italian attitude to the Jews changed with the Race Laws, which followed on from the pact Mussolini signed with Hitler in 1938. Prior to that many Jews held important positions in many walks of life including the Armed Forces, and some were fully fledged fascists. It's a huge subject about which much has been written (including by me) and if that's what we are talking about now we need another thread. Vitellino
When you have the time, Vitellino, I would be very interested in a thread about that. It's one of my other main interests in WW2, being Jewish 'by adoption' because my husband is a Jew.
I will start a thread but I need to think about how to open it. In the meantime you might like to visit my website isolamaggiore.weebly.com It explains how the Fascist prefect of the province of Perugia, Armando Rocchi, prevented the occupying German forces from transporting a group of political prisoners and Jews to concentration camps in Germany /German occupied territories in 1944. When he was later tried for war crimes a Jewish elementary school teacher and a Jewish anti-fascist testified in his favour. Vitellino
