Resisting the ‘final solution’? Ordinary fascists and Jewish policy in Italianoccupied southeastern France, 1942-1943
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Date
05/07/2017Item status
Restricted AccessEmbargo end date
31/12/2100Author
Fenoglio, Luca
Metadata
Abstract
This thesis investigates fascist Jewish policy in Italian-occupied southeastern France
between November 1942 and August 1943. The fascist government repeatedly
refused to hand over to its Nazi ally or to its French enemy foreign Jewish refugees
in the Italian occupation zone. This decision, which was tantamount to a refusal to
collaborate in the extermination of the Jews, was partially overturned in mid-July
1943. This thesis seeks to explain the rationale for the fascist government’s decisions
concerning the fates of foreign Jewish refugees in southeastern France. Current
scholarship justifies the fascist government’s decisions as a manifestation either of
humanitarianism or political expediency. This thesis argues instead that the Italian
refusal to partake in the extermination of the Jews was ideological. As the fascist and
Nazi leaderships attributed different relevance to the ‘Jewish question’, they
consequently prescribed different methods to ‘solve’ it, in the context of their
common military effort to win the war. Through the in-depth reconstruction of
fascist Jewish policy in southern France, this thesis argues that although the fascist
rulers acknowledged the existence of a ‘Jewish problem’, they never considered its
solution as vital to their effort to win the war. Unlike the Nazis who considered their
war against the Jew as the pivotal issue, thus rendering the physical eradication of all
Jews as a conceivable action in the context of a total war, the Italians considered
Jews as a secondary threat compared to communists or enemy aliens residing in their
occupation zone. In turn, by analysing fascist Jewish policy in the broader
geopolitical, diplomatic and military context of the occupation of southeastern
France, this thesis demonstrates how, and to what extent, other ethical and practical
considerations interacted with the larger ideology in operation. The overall result was
a policy in which the murder of Jews was considered politically inexpedient and
morally unacceptable, but which was, nevertheless, still persecutory (the Italian
authorities interned foreign Jewish refugees in southern France and took measures to
prevent their arrival in the Italian occupation zone). At the same time, this thesis
reveals that, although the Jewish policy was consistent with the regime’s declared
goal to ‘discriminate, but not persecute’ the Jews, it was not a necessary consequence
of that goal. Instead, this policy could be negotiated and adjusted should the political
need arise, as proved by the decision (ultimately without consequences) to surrender
German Jews in mid-July 1943.