The Italian Executioners

 The Italian Executioners and the genocide of the Jews of Italy. 

This day we learned about Italy’s involvement in WWII, the history behind the country regarding their connection to the nazi party and fascism. Under Benito Mussolini leadership, Italy allied with Nazi Germany developing Fascist regime and nationalism. Prior to this reading my assumptions about Nazi Germany was specifically German centered, unaware of what external forces influenced antisemitism and other country’s connections to the holocaust. This reading of The Italian Executioners uncovered an alternative perspective to what happened during the 1940’s, realizing that Germany was the primary orchestrator of the holocaust though Italy played a significant role too. In 1938 the antisemitic government Italy imposed racial laws upon Jews creating anti-Jew policies to transform Italy a new perspective on Italian society and to reshape their culture. Its stated that state bureaucracy, police agencies, and fascist military are directly responsible for segregating as well as prosecuting Jews, from 1943 to 1945, deeming them as “foreigners” & “enemies”. 

On January 27th we visited the Museo Storico della Liberazione di Via Tasso. Here at this museum we toured apartments which were transformed into prison cells. Imprisoned here were civilians and military personnel active in the Roman resistance. What was interesting to see was the Cella Di Segregazione. 

There was 2 windowless isolation cells that we saw where prisoners left scratchings on the wall. There they left their sad messages, some writing their last words before execution. One quote that stood out to me went along the lines of “ It better to fight for Italy and die at 20 then to die of old age” Experiencing this museum helped understand the experiences these prisoners went through and take a first hand look into the environment that they were in.