Italian Public Opinion on the Jewish Question

Documents of the National Fascist Party (PNF), from the Italian State Archive (ACS) after the adoption of the laws for the defense of the race by the fascist government.

Above all, for the majority of the Italians, the Jews are considered in spite of everything else (...) like people that coincide for all the aspects to their race, and the persecution decreed against them leaves everyone embittered and irritated because of things that are considered way out of our roman sensibility.

Teachers and professors are more than ever in defense of those who are affected by the legal measures.

The Laws are judged to be of a certain severity, especially for what concerns the prohibition to study and the revocation of the citizenship.

The legal measures against the Jews still do not affect the Italian crowd that goes on with its liberal-democratic mentality and would never conceive racial or class differentiation.

Almost nobody feels how the racial campaign has been laid down and, not for pietism, wonders where it wants to get and which ends will be gained by these legal measures and by those that will be decree in the near future.

Source: Simona Colarizi, "Lopinione degli Italiani sotto il Regime 1929-1943," Laterza Ed, 1991, pp. 249.

Source: Yad Vashem