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Today’s excerpt is a bit lengthy and takes approximately ten minutes to read. Simply put: while there appears to be no evidence of the Regio Esercito directly killing anybody on the Eastern Front for being Jewish, it was nevertheless committed to handing Jews over to the Wehrmacht so that it could do the dirty work of annihilating them.

The Regio Esercito also benefitted from antisemitism as many of its troops extorted Jews for goods, or purchased Jewish goods that ‘somehow’ ended up on the market. Many Fascist Italians were also aware that their allies were massacring Jews, but precious few of these Italians felt enough pity to help Jews avoid violence.

Now, here is where I learned all of this. Quoting Raffaello Pannacci in Operation Barbarossa and its Aftermath: New Approaches to a Complex Campaign, pages 36–41:

Italian soldiers who went to the Eastern Front in 1941 and, most of all, who joined their comrades in 1942 were aware of fascist policies toward the Jews back home and were not new to persecutions, though they had not yet witnessed [the Third Reich’s] methods in Eastern Europe.⁸⁰

Politico-military propaganda repeatedly told them that the Soviet Union was a Jewish creation, that Jews were in control in that country, starved people, had better houses, and formed part of the notorious communist police. Soldiers had to distrust Jews, all of whom were communists and many of whom were possible spies and saboteurs.⁸¹

[Fascist Italy’s] commands managed to instill fear and hate into the soldiers’ minds before operations on Soviet soil started. Troops were forbidden “any purchase in Jewish shops”⁸² in Romania, and the Csir’s commander ordered that all soldiers be aware of the danger Jews represented as possible saboteurs: “No one must frequent Jews.”⁸³

In a carbon copy of a German order issued on 6 July, he affirmed that all acts of sabotage the Csir suffered in the first weeks of war were due to “individual communist elements, above all Jews.”⁸⁴ The commander of the Italian logistics corps defined Bolsheviks as “people dominated by Jews who would love to drown Christian civilization in blood and gold and crucify Jesus once again.”⁸⁵

The Carabinieri under the Csir, too, ascribed hostile actions to Jews, also due to the fact that they paid attention to widespread popular antisemitic sentiments.⁸⁶ Furthermore [these Axis] troops were joined by many army chaplains, namely relentless anticommunist Catholic priests who mixed religion and politics in their sermons and often had an antisemitic background.

Some of them, even in postwar memoirs, affirmed that the Holocaust was a punishment for denying Jesus and defined Ukrainian communists a “small rabble generally made of degenerate bastards of Jewish extraction.”⁸⁷ Such messages achieved their goal, at least with some of the troops.

In July 1941 a report on the soldiers’ morale made known that they looked “fairly suspiciously” on the Jewish population living in eastern Romania.⁸⁸ A sergeant of the Pasubio Division wrote: “The town was run by a Jew, as well as Jews were all the leaders and dealers. […] They were Jews and, as such, capitalists and loan sharks.”⁸⁹

A Blackshirt referred to Beltsy stating “This town housed Jews, horror and deceitfulness.”⁹⁰ Another soldier affirmed: “There’s so much misery. Bolshevism is a régime that’s only good for Jews, who had any kind of privilege; everyone else was treated as a slave and was ordered around at gunpoint.”⁹¹ Letters and diaries show contrasting sentiments. Aged people, women, and children being “shot[,] most of whom for the sole crime of being Jews,” arose a soldier’s pity, but this did not alter his belief: “The current war aims to beat down Jewry.”⁹²

An officer saw Jews being used as mine removers and thought that was too harsh, though “the Jewish race he said has its own sins to pay for.”⁹³ A soldier noted that some officers faced with the “Jewish tragedy” went so far as to show “despicable pietism toward a loathsome race who gave rise to the war.”⁹⁴

[The Regio Esercito] soon witnessed mass murders and noticed that the massacre of “Russian Jews” included people who probably could not harm the occupying powers, such as “women and children […] killed in the most horrifying manner.”⁹⁵ A fascist reporter heard a soldier saying “They made us sign a statement binding us not to tell a thing about German atrocities on the Russian front.”⁹⁶

Troops’ and commands’ reactions, however, ranged from open disapproval to indifference and also included “approval for the [German] ally’s measures, especially when it came to the troops’ safety or the preservation of public order behind the front.”⁹⁷

Many Italians saw “mass shootings of Jews” and felt that they were witnessing a prearranged massacre.⁹⁸ Faced with such a sight—the Sim noted—soldiers only had “some pitiful sentiments toward the Jews being killed in hundreds by the Germans.”⁹⁹ On the contrary, according to their letters, they had a “severe reaction” when they saw that “Jews would have a franc-tireurs assignment.”¹⁰⁰

In sum, they seemed to passively accept the nature of the conflict on the Eastern Front, which immediately appeared as a war of extermination comparable to nothing [these Axis] troops had experienced so far.¹⁰¹

The soldiers’ sentiments are not surprising if we consider that [the Kingdom of] Italy housed few Jews and that they generally were neighborly with Italians. Antisemitism, at least among common people, often dealt with competition in business, especially after the war worsened everyone’s daily life.

On the contrary, Ukraine housed large Jewish communities often living beside the locals, which had kept some traditions and Semitic traits that [Axis] anti-Jewish propaganda referred to. Italians perceived Soviet Jews in a different manner, not to mention the fact that they were seen as spies and saboteurs.

Nonetheless the Regio Esercito had a partly independent policy toward “harmless” Jews. Italian commands were ordered to take a periodical census of the population and to report alleged partisans and Jews inhabiting their territories so that [the Wehrmacht] could have hostages to kill in case of a reprisal. [The Regio Esercito], also thanks to local collaborationists, made lists of Jews and communists and also guarded and jailed them, if necessary. Units normally assigned to list, guard and jail suspects, communists, and Jews were the Carabinieri, as we saw above.¹⁰²

Similarly, political commissars of the Red Army and partisans captured alive by [the Regio Esercito] had to be handed over to the [Wehrmacht, which] shot or hanged most of them. Inevitably, [the Regio Esercito] handed over to [Wehrmacht] units a certain number of Soviet Jews especially in 1941, but it is difficult to ascertain if/when they handed them over as such.

Still, in a clearly antisemitic atmosphere, [Fascist] Italians found it more important to assess if suspects were dangerous or belonged to partisan “bands,” after which they shot them or handed them over to the [Wehrmacht]. A Jew was found near an Italian communication cable, and locals advised to arrest him as a spy; Italians found more conclusive that he was a Polish refugee and did not look like he was causing damage, so they sent him to upper commands for further investigation.¹⁰³

Italians used to hire civilian workers and paid them in currency according to age, skill, and working hours. Soviet Jews could be hired, too, but they had no right to be paid and received “only board.” Such orders were issued at the beginning of the war and were confirmed later, when Italian commands ran their own territories.¹⁰⁴

There is almost no evidence on how these orders took shape, but testimonies of civilians inhabiting Italian-run territories attest that Italians paid Jewish workers neither in currency nor in kind.¹⁰⁵ An Italian captain in Balta hired two Jewish carpenters and daily remunerated them with four loaves, but his superior harshly reproved him for such a waste of bread.¹⁰⁶

A medical officer wrote in his diary that Field Hospital 235 had two Jewish workers. They were “assigned the most menial and exhausting tasks” such as cleaning latrines, and one of them fed “on waste, cigar ends and contumelies”: “Malicious and shameless soldiers taught them to present themselves saying ‘Good morning, I’m a …’ and then a latrine-tasty word.”¹⁰⁷

Furthermore it was not rare that Jews in the Regio Esercito’s territories were handed over to the [Wehrmacht], especially when the latter started sensing danger. In Horlivka, during April 1942, [Fascist] units handed over a group of sixty to one hundred Jews to the local branch of Sonderkommando 4b.¹⁰⁸ The aforementioned Lieutenant Villata, whose personal files are empty or tell nothing about his activity in the Soviet Union,¹⁰⁹ had a rôle in the anti-Jewish persecution, too.

On 5 May 1942, in Novoorlivka or maybe Shevchenko, Villata asked the Torino Division’s command to send a company “in the local ghetto with public order assignments due to the necessity to evacuate Jews”; “the company—it was said—will probably stay out all night.” Two days later, in Novoorlivka, soldiers of the same division arrested “three Jews trying to reach the enemy territory,”¹¹⁰ and during the next few days at least another five “suspects” were arrested in the same area by subunits.¹¹¹ Not by chance, on 5–6 May a Lancia 3/Ro truck under the Torino Division made a “transport [of] Jews.”¹¹²

In spring-summer 1942 the zone around Rykovo and Stalino, where Italians proved themselves “lenient,” became a “quiet oasis for all the Jews and communists who also poured in from all around.” The [Third Reich was] forced to ask [Fascist] Italian authorities to hand over hundreds of alleged partisans and Jews (including women and children), who were shot right after [the Regio Esercito] followed the [Third Reich’s] request.¹¹³ In such cases Italians took no action against Jews/communists because they were almost sure that [another Axis power] would, so they preferred to let their allies use violence, probably also in order to prevent partisan retaliation, as an Italian officer admitted.¹¹⁴

Furthermore, between May and June, [Fascist Italy’s] local units were involved in the deportation of the Jewish families of Krasny Gorodok (outskirts of Rykovo). According to locals’ testimonies, [the Regio Esercito] first isolated the Jewish families in expressly prepared barracks, then put them on trucks and transferred them to Horlivka, where the Jews finally vanished. Documents talk about five hundred persons deported and clearly refer to Villata and the Italian “gendarmerie.”¹¹⁵

Besides official operations, [these Axis] soldiers were aware that Jews in the occupied Soviet Union had no rights, could appeal no law, and could die sooner or later, so they tried to get money and goods from people belonging to the “Jewish race” either through theft or the promise of help. Such an instrumental use of the anti-Jewish persecution was not infrequent at the time.

Both in Stalino and Sinelnikove some [Fascist] Italians made abusive searches in Jewish houses in order to take away food and goods, also cooperating with [Axis] comrades and [collaborative] policemen.¹¹⁶ Collaborationist police in Rykovo, under Lieutenant Villata’s orders, sequestered 5,000 rubles belonging to a Jew, with Villata seizing half the money for alleged undercover operations.¹¹⁷

In Lviv, in September 1942, a group [from the Regio Esercito] made a Jewish family believe [that] they would help them escape to Hungary in order to avoid German persecutions. The Jews gave them jewels, raw gold, and a sum equivalent to more than €50,000. After being paid, the soldiers handed over the Jews to a […] Sonderkommando that immediately shot them.¹¹⁸

A reporter of the Fascist Political Police made known the case of an Italian lieutenant working in a liaison office in Lviv who was said to be selling secondhand radiotransmitters, clothes, and other goods coming from “shot Jews.”¹¹⁹

Italians were often aware of the origin of some goods circulating in the rear. An airman “who had a passion for music” was presented a piano by [Axis] comrades: “He asked where they found it, and they replied it was Jewish stuff coming from expropriations.”¹²⁰

In conclusion, in France or in the Balkans, for instance, Italy treated Jews better than Germany, and sometimes protected them, also refusing to hand them over to the [Wehrmacht]. This was often overstressed by the Italian military after the war in order to keep its distance from the [Axis]. Moral grounds must not be overlooked, but such policy was also due to [Fascist] Italy’s will to limit [foreign] interference in [its] territories forming part of mixed occupation areas.¹²¹

On the contrary, there could be no doubt about “who was effectively in control” on the Eastern Front, so Italians did not offer as much resistance as elsewhere, as they had no means to contradict Nazi policies in a [Reich]-led conflict.¹²²

Ascertained cases of Italians saving Jews on the Eastern Front are absolutely negligible,¹²³ whereas some Jewish women were taken aboard [Fascist] trains going to the front and sexually exploited in exchange for food and safety.¹²⁴ Postwar memoirs affirm that Jewish forced laborers in Polish and Ukrainian stations were offered food, as they aroused [the Regio Esercito’s] pity due to their living conditions.¹²⁵

Soldiers, however, also exchanged food for gold, jewels, and other goods the Jews had to give away in order to survive. An Alpino recalled how he and his comrades arrived at Piniug’s prison camp in possession of hidden “gold, rings, necklaces, watches” that they had previously gotten from Jews in exchange for bread.¹²⁶

In sum, for most of the soldiers, a yellow badge “was nothing but an oddity at the time and was worth at best a picture or a few words in a diary,” while after 1945 it became “the symbol of one of the worst crimes against humanity.”¹²⁷

[…]

There is no evidence [to our knowledge] that Italians personally killed Soviet Jews as such, but they persecuted them as suspects, undesirable elements, spies, and saboteurs and handed hundreds of them over to the [Wehrmacht]. In this case, too, Italian institutions and people preferred to forget actual (though limited) indications of Italian participation in the Holocaust.

(Emphasis added.)

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