The persecution of Rom and Sinti in Fascist Italy

Abstract

The present paper focuses on the relationship between Fascist Italy and those people we conventionally call “Gypsies”. The contradictory aspects of the Fascist anti-Gypsy policy have been analyzed from a wider historical and anthropological perspective on Rom and Sinti communities in Italy. Their persecution during the Fascist regime took different forms and enacted repressive-preventive measures meant for people who the regime considered“dangerous” to both public order and state security. While showing how Rom and Sinti suffered under these measures (such as expulsions “at own risk and peril”, police confinement and internment in camps and special localities), the whole process of categorization of the “Gypsies” has been analyzed - from Unification to the end of WWII. In perfect continuity with the liberal regime, the anti-Gypsy policy of Fascism managed to define “the Gypsy” as an “undesirable foreigner”: this sketched a category of individuals who the police could treat with the utmost discretionary power, without the least reference to the laws in force for foreigners. Even today Rom and Sinti continue to be considered a threat to “security and public order”, possibly making the persecutions they suffered during the Fascist period a topic which is not of particular interest to historians. This is why the testimonies of the Rom and Sinti were hardly noticed by society or Italian academia, also if today there is sufficient documentary evidence.