MOVIE REVIEW OF LIFE IS

BEAUTIFUL WITH REFERENCE

TO ANTI-SEMITISM IN ITALY
BY: ARNAV AWASTHI
SHALIN BUKALSARIA
SIDDHANT DAS
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL: MOVIE SYNOPSIS
 ANTI-SEMITISM IN FASCIST ITALY
BACKGROUND
● In October 1922, King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Benito Mussolini, the leader
of the Italian Fascist Party, as Prime Minister of Italy.
● Mussolini, on the other hand, failed in two ways to establish an absolute dictatorship.
● By the 1930s, Italian Jews had become fully integrated into Italian culture and
society. Anti-Semitism was not widespread among Italians. Despite the presence of
virulent antisemites among the Fascist leaders, Italian Fascism did not prioritize
antisemitism.
ANTISEMITIC LEGISLATION
● Beginning in 1938, the Fascist regime enacted antisemitic legislation in response to
Nazi Germany's pressure and concern that their "revolution" would not be seen as
"real" by the Italian people.
● Despite the severe language on paper, Italian authorities did not always actively
apply the legislation, and provisions for generating exceptions were sometimes
generously construed.
● Nonetheless, the psychological harm and real economic disadvantages of
discrimination eroded the quality of life for many members of a highly integrated
Jewish minority.
WORLD WAR II
● Italy declared war on the United Kingdom and
France in June 1940, joining Germany as an
ally in World War II after formally joining the
Axis in 1939.
● In the autumn of 1940, Italy launched an
assault on Greece and invaded British-
influenced Egypt using bases gained from the
Ottoman Turks in 1911.
● After Italy suffered crushing defeats in both
battles, the Germans launched forces in the
spring of 1941, seizing Greece and Yugoslavia
and forcing the British out of Libya.
ITALIAN OCCUPIED AREAS
● Despite its alliance with Germany, the
Fascist government was ambiguous in
its response to German demands to
concentrate and then transport Jews
living in Italian occupation zones in
Yugoslavia, Greece, and France to
extermination camps in German-
occupied Poland.
● As a result, Jews in Italian-controlled
territories were mainly protected.
MUSSOLINI’S FALL AND THE ITALIAN SURRENDER
● Italian military defeats, the virtual military dependence on German
arms, and the failure of the Axis offensive in Egypt in the summer
and autumn of 1942 further undermined the legitimacy of the Fascist
regime.
● The collapse of the North African front, culminating in the Axis
surrender in Tunis on May 13, 1943, and the successful Allied
landings in Sicily on July 10 induced the Fascist Grand Council to
issue a vote of no-confidence on Mussolini's leadership on July 25,
1943.
● King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Marshal Pietro Badoglio as
Prime Minister.
● On September 8, 1943, Badoglio announced Italy's unconditional
surrender to the Allies.
● SS paratroopers freed Mussolini from prison and installed him as the
head of a pro-German Italian Social Republic.
● The Germans quickly established an SS and police apparatus, in part
to deport the Italian Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
ROUNDUPS IN GERMAN-OCCUPIED ITALY
● In October and November 1943, German authorities rounded up Jews in Rome, Milan,
Genoa, Florence, Trieste, and other major cities in northern Italy.
● In general, these operations had limited success, due in part to advance warning given
to the Jews by Italian authorities and the Vatican, and in part to the unwillingness of
many non-Jewish Italians, including Salò police authorities, to participate in or
facilitate the roundups.
DEPORTATIONS IN GERMAN-OCCUPIED ITALY
● The German authorities deported 506 Jewish
prisoners to other camps: Bergen-Belsen,
Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, and Flossenbürg. The
majority of these prisoners were Jewish residents of
Libya, some bearing British and French citizenship.
● The SS and police established the police transit camp
View This Term in the Glossary and concentration
camp La Risiera di San Sabba in Trieste, where they
tortured and murdered about 5,000 persons, most of
whom were political prisoners.
● In all, the Germans deported 8,564 Jews from Italy,
Italian-occupied France, and the islands of Rhodes
and Kos, most of them to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
POSTWAR
● In late April 1945, Communist partisans captured and executed Mussolini and his
mistress, Clara Petacci. German forces in Italy surrendered to the Allies on May 2,
1945.
● Despite some tolerated revenge killings in the immediate aftermath of the war, Italian
authorities conducted relatively few trials of collaborators, even of those who served
the Germans in the Salò regime.
● Only since the mid-1990s have the Italian authorities been prepared to conduct a
handful of proceedings against Nazi offenders, exclusively Germans and ethnic
German auxiliaries.
THE MINDSET OF THE ITALIANS TOWARDS ANTI-SEMITISM

● In the book “The School for Dictators”, Ignazio Silone wrote a very insightful line “My country has suffered
numerous sufferings from nature and history, yet we have been spared of at least one: Italians have no idea what
is anti- Semitism”

● Jews and Italy are very closely interlinked. Even if we look at Young Italy movement, we can say that Jews
people have explicitly supported the movement like The leaders of the famous group “The society of true
Italians” were headed by the leaders who were Jews

● constitution of Italy, under article 455, religious freedom has been guaranteed to every person, the article states
that “No one should ever be stopped from practicing the religion of their choice as long as they follow the rules

● Italy has continuously shunned the racial laws of the German Establishment and wherever part the Italian forces
capture during world war II it was like the dream come true for the persecuted Jewish people.

● “The thing has been very well described in the book If This Be A Man written by famous Jewish scholar Primo
Levi, he said when he family with god grace managed to fled from Germany he was among the countless
number of Jews who found peace and kind treatment from the horror of the Nazi’s
● Italy can be said as a paradoxical state or Land of a secure future for Jews

● “The contradiction of Italy's position is obvious. Noncompliance and non-acquiescence in the face of German
demand permitted the laws to be passed; compliance and acceptance in the face of German pressure allowed the
laws to be ignored once they were implemented. It's a typical example of the Italian philosophy of "live and let
live.

● general Italian population, we can say that they don't believe in the crony idea of racial purity and denounce
antisemitism

● whenever a particular area is covered by Nazi forces to capture the Jews the Italian officers deliberately try to
break the cordon and flee the Jewish people from there, as whenever the Nazi government asked the Italy
Government to extradite the captured Jewish people, all such request were repeatedly declined by the Italian
Establishment.

● The Italian people support the Jewish people up to so much to the extent that when Jewish people were asked by
the German forces to wear yellow band as a sign of identification, such type of order was declined by the Italian
forces and categorized them as the actions lowering down the dignity of Italian Army at large
 Zionism in Italy
● Zionism is a Jewish nationalist movement whose purpose is to establish and maintain a Jewish national state in
Palestine, the Jews' ancient homeland

● Zionism was viewed as a globalized separatist movement, a weapon of British imperialism that clashed with Italy's
national interests. However, in terms of "political" anti-Zionism, Fascism essentially followed the viewpoint of
most Italian Jews. The first Zionist convention had no Italian representatives. Rabbis and leaders of the Italian
Jewish community slammed Rabbi Sonino of Naples, who took part in the second one

● Italian Jews saw Zionism as a problem for Jews in nations where prejudice and a lack of civil rights prevailed.
Furthermore, Italian Zionists believe that excessive exposure to Zionism, which is affiliated with democracy and
anti-fascism internationally, would eventually turn Italian Zionists become terrible Italians and bad Fascists.

● AntiZionism and antisemitism were never synonymous. In all respect, Mussolini and Fascism were adamantly
hostile to Italian Zionism throughout their lives. Fascism is not anti-Semitic, and prejudice toward or against Jews
has no bearing on the problems at hand in our political beliefs. Anti-Semitism was unheard of in Fascist Italy,

● Mussolini was having the policies very favorable to the Italian Jewish, although been accused by international
associations of Jews as being antisemitic
● Mussolini was having the policies very favorable to the Italian Jewish, although been accused by international
associations of Jews as being antisemitic

● contend that the spreading of the Zionist movement in Italian society will undermine the loyalty of Italian Jews
towards the nation and all these would end up in breakdown of peace, togetherness in the Italian society

● with respect to Jews also, we can say that the Jews living in Italy were also not so excited about this idea of a
separate nation because they were deeply integrated into the Italian culture and they believe that Italy is their
homeland. This sort of unity has prevented Italian society from the breakdown during the horrific years of Nazi rule

● we can say that they have very cleverly managed their all decisions in the sense that they continue to be a close
strategic partner of Germany supporting their ideologies by declaring the policies as per Germany's demands but
never implemented them in reality and safely harboring all the Jews
THE EXTENT OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN FASCIST ITALY
● Rome has been the epi-centre of far-right politics in Italy in recent weeks, with
right-wing populism and antisemitism at the fore.
● But recent events show that Fascism's legacy in Italy is far from ended, and that
the Holocaust and anti-Semitism remain emotionally and politically important
historical themes in Italy.
● Prior scholarship has tended to undervalue the importance of anti-semitism in
Fascist Italy during the Fascist era, writes Julian Zelizer.
● The Italian situation is frequently compared to the German instance of biological
racism, but Italian intellectuals distinguished themselves by promoting the
notion of common blood kinship in their own brand of Italianised racism.
● In the Fascist regime, Jews were basically robbed of their citizenship and could
no longer openly participate in vast areas of Italian culture.
● Given the resurgence of neofascism and antisemitism in Italian politics, it is
timely to re examine the prevalent narrative about Fascism and the Holocaust in
Italy.
 THE ATROCITIES COMMITTED ON JEWS IN ITALY IN THE MOVIE “LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL”

● Life is Beautiful depicts the Holocaust from 1939 to 1945, with the main emphasis on events linked to World
War Two.
● The filmmaker did an excellent job visually presenting the audience the consequence of the camps through
deaths and corpses.
● It also represents the thoughts and sentiments that Holocaust victims experienced when they realized they
were being massacred because of the faith they chose to follow.
● Life is Beautiful is a reliable source that examines the Holocaust's historical skills by depicting important
events that occurred during that period.
● The extermination of Jews and other groups like as Roma (gipsies), homosexuals, communists, mentally or
physically disabled, and others was the most significant event.
● Germans were filmed transporting children and elderly to "gas chambers" for their murders while deceiving
them into thinking they were having showers to carry out their persecution.
● The director depicted an accurate overall portrayal of the number of individuals deported to Auschwitz, as
they arrived at the concentration camp.
● They showed significant numbers of individuals residing in the Italian community being put onto trains in one
of the forty-eight concentration and extermination camps created and managed by Nazi Germany in Poland.
● The Germans rounded up as many Jews and non-Jews as possible and sent them to the camp, where millions
were slaughtered, with many more murders going unrecorded. These depict many people's opinions and
experiences throughout the conflict.
CONCLUSION