The Racial Laws and the Jewish Comunity of Rome (1938-1945)

The years between 1938 and 1943 witnessed the approval of a massive, detailed set of laws discriminating against the Jews. While there were indeed moments of anti-Semitism in Italy after unification – fed primarily by some Catholic groups – the leitmotifs so dear to anti-Jewish propaganda only began to appear widely in the Italian press with the rise of Fascism. In 1933, Telesio Interlandi, writing for Il Tevere and Roberto Farinacci for Il regime fascista, triggered a furious press campaign against the Jews. The campaign quickly spread to the other Fascist papers.