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N0KFQ > TODAY 13.12.12 16:19l 52 Lines 2318 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 32773_KB0WSA
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Dec 13
Path: IZ3LSV<F1OYP<VE2PKT<XE1FH<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 121213/1514Z 32773@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.53
...
Dec 13, 1942:
Goebbels complains of Italians' treatment of Jews
On this day, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels records in
his journal his contempt for the Italians' treatment of Jews in
Italian-occupied territories. "The Italians are extremely lax in
their treatment of Jews. They protect Italian Jews both in Tunis
and in occupied France and won't permit their being drafted for
work or compelled to wear the Star of David."
Joseph Goebbels had made the persecution, and ultimately the
extermination, of Jews a personal priority from the earliest days
of the war, often recording in his diary such statements as:
"They are no longer people but beasts." "Their destruction will
go hand in hand with the destruction of our enemies." "[T]he
Jews... are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is pretty
barbaric and is not to be described here more definitely. Not
much will remain of the Jews." It was on his recommendation that
all Jews in occupied Paris be forced to wear a yellow star on the
left side of their coats or jackets in order to identify and
humiliate them.
His vituperative anti-Semitism, which included blaming the war
itself on the Jews in a screed published in the German magazine
Das Reich, could not be contained within the boundaries of
Germany. He expected the same of his allies. But, truth be told,
in the earliest days of fascism, Mussolini had denied any truth
to the idea of a "pure" race and had counted Jews among his close
colleagues-and was even a Zionist!
But with Italy's failing fortunes militarily, Mussolini needed to
stress the Italians' "superiority" in some sense, and so began to
mimic many of the racial and anti-Jewish legislation of the
Nazis. Nevertheless, Mussolini never had the stomach_or the
conviction_for the extremes of Goebbels, Goering, and Hitler. And
certainly the majority of the Italian people never subscribed to
the growing anti-Semitic rhetoric of the regime. In fact, the
Italians refused to deport Jews from Italy-or from
Italian-occupied Croatia or France-to Auschwitz.
The majority of Italians' courage to reject the worst of fascist
ideology_its anti-Semitism_remains one bright spot in Italy's
otherwise appalling World War II record.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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