I never knew for sure what life was like in Fascist Italy. They were certainly much better off than the Jewish population in any areas controlled by the Germans. One of the more chilling facts is what happened after Italy surrendered in Sept 1943. 8,000 were rounded up and shipped to the concentration camps after Germany took control of Northern & Central Italy.
This article gives a glimpse of the underground group that risked everything to save as many as possible. A champion cyclist used his training rides as a cover for carrying critical documents for the underground. A lot of the personal stories will never be known.
They estimate 80% of the Jewish population was saved. Quite a bit different view of Italy then what I got from my high school history classes.
A similar thing happened in Hungary. The local dictator, Miklos Horthy, was an ally of Germany so Germany let him run things in Hungary. Horthy, like Mussolini, wasn’t a big fan of the Jews but they didn’t have the Nazi level of hate on the subject. So Italian and Hungarian Jews faced some oppression but there was no threat of extermination until Germany took over both countries late in the war.
Slovakia was another story. The Tiso regime was every bit as anti-semitic as the Nazis and even had its own version of the SS, the Hlinka Guard. They were in full agreement with the idea of the Holocaust and even set up their own camp system.
Spain’s dictator Francisco Franco was also quite close to Hitler - he certainly was as mentally deranged as the Führer. However, it seems that he didn’t engage in the kind of genocidal behaviour that went on in other parts of Europe, and some of Franco’s ‘people’ even helped save thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution.
It seems that during the 1940s many right-wing dictators were happy to blame the Jews for their troubles; Franco certainly mentioned a ‘Judeo-Masonic conspiracy’ whenever he had the chance. But very few of these dictators engaged in the kind of full-on extermination that Hitler encouraged. Thank God
My grandfather was a Royal Marine and was sunk off the Italian coast. He swam to shore and got taken in by an Italian priest who was part of the resistance. He spent several months being hidden in cellars until they managed to smuggle him back home. Unfortunately he never liked talking about it much and he’s gone now.
I do know that he was listed as dead and got his name put in the book of rememberance. He was already in the WWI book by mistake as it was one of his brothers who had died. When the town built the war memorial they never got round to putting any of the names up. A local historical society finally did something about that 5 years ago and used the books of rememberance as a reference so he got included, twice. Not bad for someone who died in 1986.
It takes a uniquely twisted mind to carry out wide spread and systematic executions of an entire group of people.
I’ve never understood how Hitler and the others got rank and file soldiers to carry out mass murder. We talked about the resources Germany used in my College history class. Even at the height of the war Germany gave priority to the trains carrying the people to the extermination camps. They are losing the war yet still diverting critical resources to their final solution.
Our teacher theorized it’s one reason why Germany refused to surrender. They were trying to kill as many as they could until Berlin finally fell and Hitler died.
Italy, being the home of the Pope, had never had a significant Jewish population prior to WWII and still does not. While it certainly is impressive that the Italian resistance was able to save 80% of Italy’s Jewish population, that number was depressingly low as most of Europe’s Jews lived in the Baltic States, Poland and Eastern Russia, where they were almost exterminated.
80% in Italy. I think some European Jews had fled there and to countries like Holland and Spain. But ultimately faced being shipped off to concentration camps when the Germans invaded. Spain was one of the few places that remained somewhat safe.
It’s my understanding that those that carried out the roundup and executions were SS, a volunteer position.
Furthermore, even SS, despite their fanatical antisemitism, were human and thus prone to stress from having to carry out mass executions: taking part in or being exposed to death day upon day takes its toll even if your upper mind rationalizes the victims as being less than human. That’s one reason for the gas chambers, so the executors would be able to handle executions better.
This is just an objective assessment not meant to make the SS seem more moral. Just like PTSD does not detract from a sufferers bravery, the stress (which seems a lot like PTSD from what I’ve read of it) caused by having to kill so many people does not add to a sufferers morality: it simply means they are susceptible, like all humans, to the changes in brain makeup and chemistry and aftereffects from being exposed to traumatic situations, regardless of whether they think those situations are justified.
You do know about Pope Pius XII, the Pope at the time of WWII and his political leanings, don’t you? If not, his story is interesting, if chilling, reading.
Your OP made me so interested that I pursued this question from a few different directions and there seem to be no lack of countries claiming to be on the right side.
Wiki Answers says that the countries which helped the Jews the most were Denmark and Finland.
Another site states an estimation of a million Jews traveling through Portugal for refuge.
I suppose the longer time passes the more difficult it will be to determine.
Not true. The Germans at times used regular army unit and even civilian police units to hunt down and kill Jews in occupied territories. The SS did much of it, but certainly not all.