Capogreco, fascist concentration camps, historical responsibility

Siege of Malta 1940-1942 

by Anthony Rogers is published by Greenhill Books, January 2020.

Carlo Spartaco Capogreco’s latest publication, I campi di Salò: Internamento ebraico e Shoah in Italia (2025), revisits the history of Jewish internment in the territories controlled by the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI) between 1943 and 1945.

Building on his earlier studies of internment under fascism – most importantly I campi del duce (2004) – Capogreco now turns his attention to the so-called “provincial camps”, a network of holding sites that played a role in the RSI’s anti-Jewish measures during the final phase of the war.

Published by Giulio Einaudi Editore, the book presents a detailed survey of the internment system set up after the RSI’s decree of December 1, 1943. This order, issued by Guido Buffarini Guidi, called for the arrest and detention of all Jews, regardless of nationality, and for the confiscation of their property.

Capogreco traces the establishment and operation of these camps, which ranged from former schools and religious institutions to disused villas and retirement homes. These places were often located outside major urban centres and were managed by local administrative and police authorities.

Capogreco does not limit himself to identifying the locations of these camps. He also examines the administrative processes and institutional collaboration that enabled the internment and, eventually, the deportation of Jews to Nazi camps further north.

The book makes use of primary documents, including arrest records and transfer forms, and is supplemented by visual material and testimony. Through this, the author raises questions about the way in which the RSI actively participated in the persecution of Jews, moving beyond the long-held view that Italian authorities were only reluctantly complicit.

The work, a finalist at this year’s Premio Acqui Storia, contributes immeasurably to ongoing debates about historical responsibility and the role of memory in public life. In the post-war period, attention in Italy was frequently directed towards the role played by the resistance against fascism and the Nazi occupation of Italy.

The work, a finalist at this year’s Premio Acqui Storia, contributes immeasurably to ongoing debates about historical responsibility and the role of memory in public life

The legacy of fascist institutions and their actions, including internment and deportation, received less scrutiny. Capogreco’s work reflects a shift in Italian historiography, which three decades or so ago had already begun to address these gaps.

Lessons for Maltese historiography

The lessons from this shift in Italian historical inquiry are profoundly relevant here in Malta, where we too have narratives that demand closer scrutiny.

In the 21st century, we are still afraid of confronting uncomfortable histories. We tend to obscure them behind narratives dictated by party politics and romanticism. While acknowledging our biases, we must not be afraid of looking into asking objective and informed questions to learn more about ourselves, about who we are and how we came to be.

Rightly so, the internment and exile of Maltese from different strata of society by order of the British colonial administration of the islands (1940-1945) has received the attention of some historians but other situations remained shelved for decades.

Capogreco’s book cover shows the Memorial to the Deportation in Borgo San Dalmazzo, near Cuneo, Italy, which marks a former concentration camp used between 1943 and 1944 to detain Jews prior to deportation. Photo: Giorgia Angonova Menardi/Wikimedia Common

For instance, despite the existence of ample archival material about Maltese British subjects residing in the Italian colony of Libya – eventually suffering internment, deportation and concentration camps – the community remained largely on the margins of Maltese historiography.

Post-war Maltese politicians had reasons of their own for not addressing the plight of the Maltese Tripolini. The British authorities, for their part, showed little interest in acknowledging the hardship endured by these subjects.

On the international stage, the Maltese of Libya were simply overlooked – too few in number to warrant diplomatic intervention and lacking the political leverage to make their voices heard. For decades, Maltese historiography followed suit, leaving their experience largely unrecorded and unrecognised.

As with the Italian case, these absences may relate to sensitivities around questions of loyalty and identity. Some have suggested that these episodes are too close to our present: while a few protagonists are still around, their sons and daughters still carry the memories and scars of the recent past, and that makes it difficult for proper historical scrutiny.

In other words, I campi di Salò is not just another book about concentration camps. By documenting the structure and functioning of the RSI camps, Capogreco is contributing to a wider effort to understand how administrative systems can be used to target specific groups during times of conflict.

At the same time, his research is a reminder that difficult episodes are not best left unexamined. It is a confrontation with the mechanics of denial, a blueprint for critical historiography and a reminder that one cannot escape tough questions.

Mario Xuereb is a historian and a former assistant editor at Times of Malta.