Campo di Ferramonti di Tarsia

The internment camp of Ferramonti di Tarsia was the main and most numerous among the various places of internment for non-Italian Jews, stateless persons and citizens of foreign countries at war with Italy that the fascist regime opened in various location of Italy between June and September 1940, just before the entrance of Italy in the Second World War. In Ferramonti, the largest group of internees was that of foreign Jews. To understand why in this internment camp there were no italian jews, but only foreign Jews from various parts of Europe, it is necessary to reconnect with the phenomenon of the forced emigration of Jews that took place in many European countries during the 1930s. In 1903 with the publication by the Tsarist police of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a false document that was intended to prove the existence of a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world, a new wave of anti-Semitism progressively spreaded throughout Europe and United States, but its most important receptive center was in Germany. Already, in pre-Nazi Prussia, the Jews could not access either governmental positions, administration, army or academic positions. According to Bismarck, a Christian state such as Prussia could not tolerate Jews in its ranks, only to then use Jewish bankers to restore its finances. In this clear anti-semitic context, Italy had had a different position. The Italian unification (also known as Risorgimento) conferred equal dignity on the Jews and, at the beginning of the last century, many Italian Jews occupied high institutional positions: 3 presidents of the Council (Fortis, Luzzati and Sidney Sonnino ), a mayor of Rome (Nathan) and during the First World War our army numbered fifteen generals and three Jewish admirals. At that time, in Italy, the main opponent of the Jews was the Catholic Church and certainly not the Italian state or its people. However, the advent of totalitarian regimes completely changes the face of anti-Semitism across Europe. In 1933, when the Nazis came to power, a little more than half a million Jews lived in Germany, many of whom began to emigrate to states considered safer such as France, the United States, Palestine and South America. Until September 1941, Nazism itself chose the path of a forced emigration of Jews out of their territories rather than internment. Although the fascist ideology had a clear anti-Semitic matrix, Italy was the protagonist of a more modest Jewish immigration, which was tolerated by fascism itself, which, unlike Germany, allowed foreign Jews the possibility of integrating into Italian professional life, to study at university and to earn the necessary means of subsistence. In those years, the lack of a diffuse anti-Semitism feeling in the Italian population configured Italy as a sort of "precarious refuge" for Jews seeking salvation from Nazism. However, the Italian racial laws of 1938 radically changed the attitude of substantial tolerance-endurance. As in the Bismarck's Prussia, Italian Jews were excluded from all civil rights and kept separate from the "pure Italian race, but not captured and imprisoned. Foreign Jews who immigrated to Italy after January 1919 not only lost their civil rights, but also the right of residence with the expulsion order within 6 months following the publication in 1938 of the racial laws. Paradoxically, on the other hand, in the following 1939 a law was promulgated for which a “tourist visa” was granted to foreign Jews who intended to travel to Italy for business, care, study and boarding. Following the advent of Nazism in Germany, about 9,000 Jews immigrated to Italy: many of them left Italy after the racial laws, but in May 1940 about 4,000 foreign Jews were still in Italy. In that month, preceding the entry into the war June 1940), fascism decided to capture and intern all the foreign Jews who had not complied with the expulsion decree. It is a real paradox to consider that Italy, initially much more tolerant than Germany, issues an arrest order for foreign Jews more than a year before the same decision by the Nazism in Germany, which began the round-up of all Jews only after September 1941. Another of Italy's many contradictions regarding its Jewish question.
Tuttavia, l’avvento dei regimi totalitari cambia completamente il volto dell’antisemitismo in tutta l’Europa. Nel 1933, all’arrivo del nazismo al potere, vivevano in Germania poco più di mezzo milione di Ebrei molti dei quali iniziarono a emigrare verso stati ritenuti più sicuri quali la Francia, gli Stati Uniti, la Palestina e il Sud America. Fino al settembre 1941, lo stesso nazismo più che l’internamento sceglie la via dell’emigrazione forzata degli Ebrei fuori dai propri territori. Malgrado l’ideologia fascista avesse al suo interno una chiara matrice antisemita, l’Italia fu protagonista di una più modesta immigrazione ebraica di fatto tollerata dallo stesso fascismo che, al contrario della Germania, permetteva agli ebrei stranieri la possibilità di integrarsi nella vita professionale italiana, di studiare all’università e di guadagnare i necessari mezzi di sussistenza. La mancanza poi di un diffuso antisemitismo nella popolazione italiana fa dell’Italia di quegli anni una sorta di “rifugio precario” per gli Ebrei in cerca di salvezza dal nazismo. Tuttavia, le leggi razziali italiane del 1938, cambiano radicalmente l’atteggiamento di sostanziale tolleranza-sopportazione: gli ebrei italiani, così come era avvenuto nella Prussia di Bismarck, vengono esclusi da ogni diritto civile, tenuti separati rispetto alla popolazione di “pura razza italiana”, ma non catturati e imprigionati; gli ebrei stranieri immigrati in Italia dopo il 1 gennaio 1919 non solo perdono i diritti civili, ma anche il diritto di residenza con l’ordine di espulsione entro 6 mesi dalla pubblicazione delle leggi razziali. Paradossalmente, d’altro canto, nel successivo 1939 fu promulgato un decreto per cui era concesso il visto turistico a ebrei stranieri che intendevano recarsi in Italia per affari, cura, studio e imbarco. In breve, dall’avvento del nazismo al potere immigrano in Italia circa 9.000 Ebrei: molti di loro si allontanarono dall’Italia dopo le leggi razziali, ma nel Maggio 1940 circa 4.000 ebrei stranieri si trovano ancora in Italia. In quel mese, precedente all’entrata in guerra, il fascismo decide di catturare e internare tutti gli ebrei stranieri che non avevano ottemperato al decreto di espulsione. E’ un paradosso pensare che l’Italia, inizialmente più tollerante rispetto alla Germania, emetta un ordine di cattura per gli ebrei stranieri più di un anno prima della stessa decisione da parte della Germania nazista, la quale iniziò il rastrellamento di tutti gli Ebrei solo dopo il settembre 1941. Un’altra delle tante contraddizioni dell’Italia riguardo alla questione ebraica.