Fascists, SS, and plunder in wartime Italy

After the promulgation of the anti-Jewish laws of November 1938 by Mussolini’s Fascist government, Jews living in Italy became second- and third-class citizens overnight.

Eventually, the same pattern that afflicted their brethren in Germany and Austria befell the Jews of Italy, after living under the illusion that they were protected owing to their high levels of assimilation in Italian society. Social, cultural, economic, professional exclusions, evictions, and pauperization became the three pillars of their calvary in that crucial period prior to the German invasion of Italy in mid-1943.

Thinking that conversions might help them, close to 6000 Jews may have left the Jewish faith, at least on paper, in order to forestall further persecutions. Others chose to leave while some committed suicide.

It is worth remembering, in any discussion pertaining to economic loss and forced sales, that the reduction to second- and third-class citizenship is a direct invitation to wholesale persecution, harassment, and exploitation.

After the German conquest of Italy—let’s call it for what it is!—and the imposition of military rule anchored in racialist hatred, the SS set about importing to Italy the ingredients and mechanics of the Final Solution--location, identification, mass roundups, incarceration, concentration, and deportation.

This is where the most skeptical should revisit their cynicism about how Italy should not be treated like other European countries at the core or periphery of the Final Solution because of how nice Italians were to the Jewish populace. Granted, many Italians were scandalized by the rudeness and cruelty visited upon their Jewish neighbors and friends by the invaders from the North. But was it because they wished for an “Italian” solution to the Jewish “Problem” as was the expressed desire of the Vichy Fascists who regretted the heavy-handedness of the German occupiers in wartime France? As noted by German propaganda specialists in the RSHA, that was indeed the wish expressed by their Fascist allies, that they should be left to take care of their Jewish problem.

Nevertheless, opportunity has a tendency to knock only once. When thousands of Jews were forcibly removed from their homes in order to be incarcerated and deported, it should come as no surprise that a number of those homes were ‘liberated’ and ‘occupied’ by good Italians, Fascist ones at that.

Questions to answer:

• What happened to those properties?
• What happened to the contents of those ‘liberated’ homes? 
• Did the postwar Italian government go after those responsible for the illegal seizures who were not acting on German orders?

Up close and personal at the Final Solution in Rome

Among the mass of documents concerning the Final Solution which were made available to the general public are cable exchanges decoded by the Allies which took place between German SS officials in Rome and their superiors in Berlin. They recount the atmosphere in Rome in the days following the seizure of the city by German troops in September 1943. For anyone doing research on wartime plunder, these cables provide an important contextual matrix for understanding relations—often tense—between the SS and the Fascists, especially their police, the militia and the Carabinieri.

11 October 1943—Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the RSHA [Berlin] to Herbert Kappler, Head of he German Police and Security Services in Rome

“It is precisely the immediate and thorough eradication of the Jews in Italy which is the special interest of the present internal political situation and the general security in Italy. To postpone the expulsion of the Jews until the Carabinieri and the Italian Army officers have been removed can no more be considered than the idea mentioned of calling up the Jews in Italy for what would probably be very improductive labour under responsible direction by Italian authorities. The longer the delay, the more the Jews who are doubtless reckoning on evacuation measures have an opportunity by moving to the houses of pro-Jewish Italians of disappearing completely… Italy [has been] instructed … to proceed with the evacuation of the Jews without further delay.”

16 October 1943—From Kappler to Berlin

“Action against Jews started and finished today in accordance with a plan worked out as well as possible by the office. All available forces of the Sicherheitspolizei and the Ordnungspolizei employed. Participation of Italian police was not possible in view of unreliability in this respect, as only possible by individual arrests in quick succession inside the 26 action districts. To cordon off whole blocks of streets, in view both of Rome’s character as an open city and of the insufficient number of German police, 365 in all, not practicable. In spite of this 1259 persons were arrested in Jewish homes and taken to assembly camp(s) of the military school here in the course of the action which lasted from 0530 to 1400 hours. After the release of those of mixed blood, of foreigners including a Vatican citizen, of the families in mixed marriages including the Jewish partner, and of the Aryan servants and lodgers, there remain 1002 Jews to be detained. Transportation on Monday 18/10 at 0900. Escort by 30 men of the Ordnungspolizei. Attitude of Italian population was one of… passive resistance, which in a large number of individual cases has developed into active assistance. In one case, for example, the police were met at a house-door by a Fascist, with an identity document and in a black shirt, he having undoubtedly taken over the Jewish house only an hour before and alleged it to be his own… ..part of the population did not make an appearance during the action, but only the broad masses, who in individual cases even attempted to keep single policemen back from the Jews…”

17 October 1943—Amt III Referent of the RSHA [Rome] to Berlin

“Population excited and angry after the action against the Jews. Sympathy is the uppermost feeling among the lower classes, especially because women and children were taken… Growing indignation, especially against the German police. Fascists regret that the Jewish question has not been solved by Fascism…”

20 October 1943—Dr. Jur. Willhelm Harster, SS Brigadeführer to Berlin

“Transport of Jews from Rome left Rome on 18th at 0900 hours with transport No. X70469 and is traveling via Arnoldstein to Auschwitz…”

Looted art in Italy

Although the more than 48 postwar Italian governments have been focused largely on what the Germans removed from Italy during their two-year occupation of the country, little attention has been paid to looted art entering the Italian art market from Western Europe, Switzerland, and Austria.

Italian art dealers are an expert lot with ties to galleries, museums, and collectors around the world, namely in Europe and the Americas. Despite the rise to power of Benito Mussolini in 1922 and the instauration of a Fascist government, normal trade relations and cultural exchanges persisted well into the 1930s between the new Italy and its neighbors, even as far away as the United States.

After the German invasion of Western Europe in spring 1940 and the systematic plundering of hundreds of Jewish collections that ensued over the next four years, Italian galleries were busily entering into the fray as possible avenues of recycling loot. Capitalizing on their privileged relations with art experts and museum officials from Nazi Germany, these Italian dealers were only too glad to be paid in kind with modernist and especially Impressionist works, in exchange for which they offered Italian and other Old Masters to German agents. Italian dealers like Ventura and Bonacossi were more than willing to adapt to the German way of trading art: My Bellotto for 2 Monets. Joke aside, this is as close to the truth as one can get when it comes to these exchanges.

The following works were used to pay off Italian dealers in exchanges brokered by Goering’s favorite art specialist, Walther Andreas Hofer:

A painting by Sisley belonging to the Lindon family in Paris;

Three paintings by Monet, one belonging to Lindon, the other two to Paul Rosenberg;

One painting by Renoir belonging to Paul Rosenberg;

One painting by Degas belonging to Paul Rosenberg;

One painting by Cézanne belonging to Alphonse Kann of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.