“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but above all, thou shalt not be a bystander” (A), these wise words were spoken by Yehuda Bauer, 65 years after the start of the Holocaust. Italy, under the rule of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, was one of the many countries who turned her back on the Jewish people. Because of political, social and economic reasons, Italy was a bystander to the heinous crimes inflicted on the Jewish population. Benito Mussolini took control of the Italian government in 1922, and ruled until 1943. Under Mussolini’s rule, democratic institutions were shut down. The shutdown of democratic institutions resulted in a Fascist dictatorship. One of Mussolini’s main goals for Italy was to build a …show more content…
Nazi propaganda in Italy included pictures of smiling Nazis reaching out to shake your hand, and small children waving flags with swastikas. The lack of honest media showing what was happening to the Jewish community, and why it was happening, resulted in uneducated Italian citizens who did not know the true horror of what went on in concentration camps. Word of what was going on in Germany did not even reach America until 1942 in an article written by Varian Fry. Fry describes the massacre of the Jewish community as acts “so horrible, decent men and women find them impossible to believe [and] so monstrous that the civilized world recoils incredulous before them” (Fry). This article resulted in America’s very late, but positive involvement in the Holocaust. But why did Italy, a country so much nearer in proximity to Germany than America, never get involved? Because Nazi propaganda was nonexistent in America. Nevertheless, some could still argue that social forces had no effect on Italy’s un-involvement, this argument would be extremely weak because it is clear “Nazi propaganda was essential to motivating those who executed the mass murder of European Jews” (Nazi). If disinformation, such as propaganda had not swept across the country of Italy, it is clear to see why the number of Jews who were sent to concentration camps would have been fewer. As a final point, economic factors
Italy had said it wanted to integrate all of the population into the Italian society. Mussolini would refer to Muslims as “Muslim-Italians.” He also would call himself a “protector of Islam”. Jews initially integrated fine into the Italian society, but in the late 1930’s there began an anti-Semitic sentiment under the Fascist regime. This would force Jews from the jobs, schools, preventing them from any form of success.
The war created many social and political problems throughout the country and by the election of 1919 things changed dramatically. The socialists and popular Catholic parties took over the Parliament, which lead to the ideas of a revolution among the people (Defusco). One leader of this revolution was Benito Mussolini, who founded a movement called Fascism. After four years of revolution, Mussolini took over as the dictator of Italy and eliminated civil liberties, political parties, and encouraged a totalitarian regime (Defusco). Mussolini soon joined forces with Hitler and World War II came into affect. The Fascists later turned on Mussolini and Italy joined the Allies to fight Germany. This reaction lead to a strong anti-Fascist movement called the Committee of National Liberation (Defusco). By the year 1946 the idea for a republic was anonymous. Various parties were
During the Second World War, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was the leader of the Italian Nationalist Fascist government. He was head of the Italian government from 1922 till 1943. The significance of Mussolini is that he played a key role acting as the Italian Prime Minister and established a totalitarian regime, during this time, as the unchallenged supreme leader, known as ‘Il Duce’. Fascism consisted of many contributors of which Mussolini with all his quirks was the key to most of its failures and successes, making him the most significant player that is worthy of being investigated. This topic is worthy of being investigated as Mussolini made a lot of decisions that lead to the death of many, but the question as to
Along with the Fascist Party, came the idea of a "perfect" race of man, and persecution. Hitler’s idea of a non-Jewish race appealed to Mussolini. Before the war began, Benito Mussolini and his army started their persecution of the Jews in Italy. This did not last long, however, because Mussolini’s popularity began to fall. As his popularity among his people began to decline, so did his relations with many European nations. Much of Italy’s foreign relations depended solely on treaties and pacts. (5) As Germany and Italy moved together towards a uniform society, the strength and honor of the treaties were in jeopardy.
Mussolini consolidation of fascist power in Italy in the years 1922-1929 could have been mainly due to the use of force and intimidation. However this was not a straightforward process, since fascism was a new thing. In the years 1922 to January 1925 marked the transition from the liberal parliamentary system to the fascist state. Like many political transitions, it was an untidy and complicated process. Although from the start Mussolini’s intentions were quite difficult to establish, however it could be that Mussolini wanted to set up from the beginning a totalitarian one party state.
Benito Mussolini and his creation of Fascism was the glue that held Italy together. Fascism promised national unity and condemned the Socialist party. To understand how Fascism became powerful within Italy, it is imperative to acknowledge the driving force behind this regime. To put it bluntly, violence played an essential role in the development of the Fascist party. Mussolini’s practice of fierceness was able to create a formidable system of government that did not tolerate weakness. In 1919, Benito Mussolini give an Afternoon speech, where he stressed the difference between Socialism and Fascism. Here, he states, “We declare war, against socialism, not because it is socialism, but because it opposes nationalism” (Stone 2013, 38).
War is inevitable, as it is simply the manifestation of the strength and vigour of the Italian people that wishes to expand itself, never looking back. Peace was considered as merely a “mask to surrender and cowardice.” Mussolini stressed that Italians required “forces, duty, and sacrifice” in order to rise again to their former greatness, that of the Roman Empire. This is also Mussolini’s rationale for harsh and severe actions against any who would resist or try and undermine fascism.
“The risk of the Holocaust is not that it will be forgotten, but that it will be blamed and surrounded by monuments and used to absolve all future sin,” Zygmunt Bauman. Even if the whole world was told about the violence the Jewish people faced, the world that hasn’t experienced this would not believe anyone. There are many who know about this derogatory action and just don't do anything about it. These kind of people are called “bystanders,” this is a term that has often been given to people who had a mutual feeling to the escalating persecution in the Holocaust. After the war, many ordinary Germans and Europeans claimed that they were “not involved,” that they were “bystanders” to the events of the Holocaust. Use of the term “bystander” to avoid the responsibility for what happened, however, concealed the many different levels of individual involvement at all levels of society.
There's multiple reasons why the other counties didn’t help stop The Holocaust. Some distractions were the Treaties between the European countries, the Poor Economy and The Battles of World War II.
Popular history depicts the Italians of World War II as traitors and incompetent. After all, the country did switch sides midway through the war. However, this perception does a disservice to the hundreds of thousands of Italian Military Internees who refused to join the German
It became the foundation of the fascist movement in Italy following World War I. Mussolini used the newspaper to spread his ideas of fascism. On June 6, 1919, an issue of Il Popolo d’Italia listed and described the goals of fascism. However, fascism did not begin to take off until October of 1922.
Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister in 1922 due to the depriving affects that world war one had on Italian society. The war destroyed Italy economically leading to a rise in socialism. This in turn lead to highlighting the weaknesses of the liberals as the country was torn apart in the red years. This strengthened the appeal of fascism as it was the cure that Italy needed to get rid of the socialists. The fascists needed only to organise their party and take advantage of the open opportunity to seize power in Rome.
Fundamentally, both Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler had the same burning desire to each make their nation a respected and economically impregnable Great Power. Mussolini wanted to return Italy to its glory days of the ancient Roman Empire, a domestic policy amongst others which was used as propaganda and to ultimately consolidate his power. A strong economy and a united state were vital for both countries in case of the outbreak of yet another catastrophic war. "Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state", stated Mussolini in need of desperate backup at home. Post WWI left both Germany and Italy with grave problems economically, which further repelled into social problems such as high unemployment and
In the early days of Mussolini’s regime (he came to power in 1922), Italian foreign policy seemed rather confused: Mussolini knew what he wanted, which was ‘to make Italy great, respected and feared.’ But he was not sure how to achieve this, apart from agitating for a revision of the 1919 peace settlement in Italy’s favour. At first he seemed to think an adventurous foreign policy was his best line of action, hence the Corfu Incident and the occupation of Fiume in 1923. By an agreement signed at Rapallo in 1920, Fiume was to be a ‘free city’, used jointly by Italy and Yugoslavia; after Italian troops moved in, Yugoslavia agreed that it should belong to Italy. After these early successes, Mussolini became
As a result of how Italy was created but not fully unified, the new Italian state suffered from a variety of weaknesses which the new liberal state was unable to tackle these. This made Italy susceptible to the appeal of fascism, and therefore aided Mussolini’s rise to power.