Fascist Italy's Campaign Against the Jews

FAIN: FT-57528-10

Franklin H. Adler
Macalester College (St. Paul, MN 55105-1899)

The NEH Summer Stipend will be devoted to archival research at the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome, Italy. I will examine documents of Italian fascist organizations and government offices implicated in the evolution of anti-Semitic policy prior to and through the Second World War. I offer a bold, empirically grounded thesis which traces how Italian antipathy toward Jews was based primarily on class, instead of more familiar origins in religion, race or biology. This research will culminate in a book-length manuscript which synthesizes and draws conclusions from nearly a decade of study of Italian Fascism.