Mussolinis children race Elementary Education in fascist italy. Lens of the state mandated Youth Culture to analyze the evolution of official racism in fascist italy. Between 1922 and 1940, educational institutions designed to mold the minds and bodies of italys children between ages five and 11 undertook a mission to rejuvenate the italian race and create a second roman empire. This project dependent on the twin beliefs that the italian indeed indeed it constituted a distinct race and certain aspects of their moral and physical makeup could be influenced during childhood. Released last year is the work of our visiting author, dr. Eden maclean. A historian of 20thcentury europe with a focus on italy in the interwar period. Universityauburn department of history 2012 after teaching for two years at western connecticut state university. She earned her phd in history from Yale University and a ba in history from university of virginia. She is joined on stage tonight by museum advisor, partner, and bishop. Dr. The director of our partner for tonights program, Center Austria. He is a regular presence here. Programs, and in meeting rooms as we plot the growth of the museum over the past 20 years. It is my pleasure to pass things off to his capable hands, but first please join me in welcoming our guests. [applause] dr. Bischof thank you for being here. It is a pleasure to do this program tonight with dr. Mclean, considering we do not talk about mussolini and italian fascism often. Outink it is good to branch and talk about other subject matters here. We cannot have a better specialist of fascist italy than dr. Mclean. Atn i mentioned this one day Center Austria that we would talk on midsts children, someone mussolinis children, someone started talking about the book. But it is about the children of the entire organization, those are mussolinis children and how they were educated in Italian Schools. I would love to start by asking does anyone in this country specialize in italian history . Dr. Mclean that is a good question and one i have gotten before. I started studying italy by chance. I was studying the italian language in college and decided to study abroad in bologna. Paperwriting a research on the Italian Resistance Movement and this is sort of my experience asking this question, because i had never heard of the Italian Resistance Movement before i started researching it. Was living in northern italy and doing research it became clear that the Italian Resistance Movement was one of if not the prominent memory of for a lot of italians. So i became very interested in this difference between the beerience of history and to perception of history. Italy and thern continuing reckoning with fascism is particularly in thent because here united states, we often think of italy as an afterthought, especially where we are more interested in the world wars as opposed to the years in between the world wars. Italy did not initiate either war. Their military is frequently portrayed as a rather incompetent and illequipped. War andin in the first a decided not win in the second meant it was not important. Andi think Research Conversation shows italy has a lot to tell us about ,0thcentury political cultural, and social crises and movements on responses to those crises. Ultimately, i think we as americans often like to compare italy to germany or france or britain, and therefore it is not as important. But i actually think you cannot understand any of the National Context without understanding how they interact with one another. Ultimately, in terms of world war ii, you cannot understand adolf hitler without understanding mussolini and fascism. Dr. Bischof you learned italian in college. Up are you did not grow in an italianamerican family. Dr. Mclean correct. My father was a historian of germany so i grew up learning some german and in high school i had gone through all of the german classes i could and had to strike a compromise with my father. He wanted me to take french and i wanted to take spanish so we decided on italian. So i studied italian history because i know italian and i did not want to have to use my latin. Dr. Bischof you mentioned germany and if you think about fascism and racism, your first probably think about National Socialism and antisemitism. Your book makes a very clear hadt that italian fascism very little to do with antisemitism. That came later in 1938. Can you layout the main arguments of your book to have your audience understand what you mean by Italian Fascist racism . Dr. Mclean absolutely. As you have said, the core argument of my book is concepts of race and racism were critical to italian fascism. As members of an american audience to understand, because of our Clear Association of world war ii and racism to antistate antisemitism, that antisemitism and in the wars or nazi germany. They are separating the idea of race and racism from antisemitism is important. Argue is that the fascist periodin the interwar used Elementary Education to instill and promote a campaign what they termed a human italians,n to mold italian children, into what they consider ideal italians in order to go off and reconquer and rebuild a roman empire. What is interesting about this is that what they argued were the ideal characteristics of the within and inborn eight two every italian inate two every italian. They argued that the glory of in each and resided every italian. They were born with this. And that it could be seen through their behavior, their morals, language, spirit. And if they could strengthen those, then they could actually regain their place in the sun. , to clarify what i mean about race and racism is focus onthat fascists characteristics of the site that were moral or behavioral, spiritual, as opposed to physical appearance, does not make it actually less racial. Because at the heart of the idea of race is that there are certain characteristics that are actually born within someone that they have no control over. It is an inherited trait, right . That is the essence of race. Arguing that the traits and characteristics of a group are superior to other groups is the essence of racism and that is absolutely what the Italian Fascist mission was. Dr. Bischof we will come back to this issue of racism but i thought it would be interesting for audience to hear a bit about how the Italian School system was organized. School used to be on the board and i found out the School System here is organized on a local level. I grew up in austria and i did not know that in great detail. However, this is much like the austrian system, the very centralized system. Maybe you could briefly explain that. Dr. Mclean sure. For those of you who do not know, some of the differences are merely by the fact that we live, we have a federal government and it gives autonomy to our states and some states give more autonomy to cities or counties. In italy, the idea was the ministry of education in rome made the rules, the curricular and policy decisions for the entirety of italy. That was especially true under mussolinis regime. There were several loopholes to this. In theory, places like sicily or naples had no choice over what they could teach and for how long and what books they had. , much of italyly was agricultural and rural, a lot of schools had less oversight and italy for a long time was very poor. Control toa lot of what they called paris States Education that ran schools. Weren various regions differences in oversight but the main goal was that the state at large had control over all of the school. People to oversee and control. Dr. Bischof so the state would be responsible for adopting schoolbooks and for hiring teachers. So teachers had to sort of buy into this fascist idea of race, right . Dr. Mclean certainly more overtime. This is one of the things that shows the evolution of fascism over time. They did not have state textbooks until the 1930s. , there is a little bit more flexibility. But once we have the 1930s, there is increased centralization and there are not choices. Teachers in theory were supposed to buyin to all of the rhetoric , health, andrace prosperity the state wanted. Dr. Bischof you talk a lot in dynamicpters about the of fascism developing from the all the waye 1930s down to 1938 when they became antisemitic. It became more extreme. Can you talk about that dynamic from the 1920s to the 1930s, how it developed and became more extreme . Dr. Mclean there are two aspects and one is more boring. That is educational policy. Things became more centralized over time. They were continually trying to focus power in the states and state organizations. So there is that. The more interesting one is the evolution of the ideology. And moreme tighter focused. In the 1920s, we have to remember mussolini was the first fascist. No one had done this before. Of the 1920s was mussolini attempting to figure out what he was doing and figure out his control, how to gain control and keep it. We see this also in the pentagoni. In the 1920s, much of the focus unifiedighlighting what italians, what positively characterized the italian race, what the shared history and characteristics were. It was also when the state created two very important organizations. I forgot my slideshow, sorry. We will move ahead. How one of the fundamental ideas behind this education was that italians absolutely were born of the roman past. Past andally had roman their blood. The great latin blood. To they also, we can go back some of these images in a moment. Organizations the they developed to help this campaign, the racial campaign, was called oni and it was the organization of the protection of mothers and children. It was a National Public Health Organization that was meant to protect mothers and children and dealt with physical health. 1926, theyar, founded the Youth Organization. The fascists had a Youth Organization from the beginning but this organization opened in 1926 and it was meant as basically a boy scout girl scout childrenion for all ages eight to 18 before moving onto the military. Shows, andhis image itlains its it expands to girls. This is an afterschool organization. It was organized by gender, divided by gender. Boys wore the military uniforms even at age six. Little ms on the front for their spiritual father, was illini. They were taught how to become little soldiers. Their spiritual father, mussolini. They were taught how to become little soldiers. Women wore uniforms. They were primarily taught how to become mothers and wives of the fatherland. They were taught first aid and mothering techniques and how to clean house. That was the 1920s. Once they had this established, things increased. They are focusing on who is italian and celebrating who is italian and reminding people to have things in common. Is a fairlyt italy , it united in the 1860s. It has a lot of regional variation. So its to remind italians they have more in common than they have different. By the 1930s they are trying to tell italians that to be a good italian is the same as being a good fascist. Equate campaign is to the italian race with the fascist race. If you are a good italian, if you embody the ideals of the italian race, you are embodying the ideals of the fascist italian. This alongside increasingly restrictive ideas about who is italian and who is not. Enemiesve always been of the italian race, right . Differentiatean italians from subsaharan africans. But now they are increasingly reminding italians that dramatic people, slavic people, are not italian. Homosexuals are not italian. People who do not work harder not italian. Alcoholics are not italian. Independent women are not italian. There is this flexibility of what it means to be racial. We have the ethiopian war. Invades ethiopia. I am getting into lecture mode. I apologize. This was a key way for the to have a very clear example of who is not italian around which italians could identify and fight. After that, in 1936, mussolini realizes they are still not united or strong as an italian race and they need to increasingly restrict the definition of who is italian. Hard to imagine that people who drink are not good italians, which all of the alcohol they give us still. [laughter] war andto the ethiopian italians being the progeny of the roman empire, how would you ofracterize the fascist idea italy, of history . I found it interesting that they really make big jobs from the roman period to the renaissance period and many in between when from were foreign invaders germany and other parts of europe, is left out. Can you talk about that . Dr. Mclean absolutely. Like all good nationalists of idea of dwelling on negative history was not popular. Glory of was on the italys past, primarily ancient rome, but also the renaissance and unification process, movement. Other things do not matter because ultimately, invaders would always try to keep the italians down, but always rome would resurrect itself because of this innate superiority within their blood. , theseid not matter others stumbles the italians had experienced over the centuries. Dr. Bischof in the mid1930s, in thesay became mid1930s, you could say mussolini built an empire. In africa,erties issue libya, now the now they initiated the war in ethiopia. Building, so empire or the idea of empire had been part of the fascist rhetoric for a while. That wasactual war both a symbol and a reality of the beginning of a new roman empire was incredibly powerful. In fact, most historians argue that 1935, 1936 during this war, is mussolinis most popular period in his entire 20 year reign. It was sort of a reality for these lessons that children had been given now for a decade embody thehad to best of the italian race so you could go out and be soldiers, conquer this empire, and then rule it, right . Was a powerfullf tool, but it was also seen as only a beginning. Itwas not seen as the end, was seen as the beginning of a new roman empire. Andthereafter, students fascists needed to figure out how to become rulers of that empire. Dr. Bischof so you could probably argue this, too, that building the empire helped radicalize fascist racism further. The ethiopian is campaign, and then there is the next step in the radicalization with the minister of education and writing lies that begin to thatde writing laws exclude jews from the italian population. Dr. Mclean after 1936, the fascist state creates a series of laws in the empire and at home to make sure there were clear divisions between rulers and ruled, right . Andact, while the antalya the italian empire is not settling as early as the french thereddish and ritesh, regimeish, the fascist some of the most racist africa. In the fact that italians kept blurring the lines between ruling and ruled meant at least two mussolini they had not understood the importance of maintaining the strength of the italian race. Laws were written for the School System in terms of keeping italian jews out of the academy. Antisemitic laws, it is important to note were part of a larger set of laws generally racist and intent and made clearly for the first time and to great surprise of many italians werehe yanarently part of the ar race, which they had never done before. A racismd to inject that had not as prevalent in italian fascism before. Dr. Bischof was there an element of competition between mussolini and hitler in terms of radicalizing the antisemitic policy in italy . Dr. Mclean i dont think in terms of antisemitism there was competition. Often the argument has been that antisemiticsed laws something because of hitler, and there is no evidence of that. There is evidence that hitlers did nothing of the sort. Was thei thought he mentor. He was the father of fascism, hitler looked up to him for a long time, mussolini thought he was a buffoon who would go nowhere. Turns 1930s, hitler out to be able to do damage on his own. By the late 1930s, mussolini is iste concerned that hitler going to leave him in the dust. Particularly we see in the , 19361939,l war and then getting into world war ii, certainly a sense of one upmanship is more prevalent. Come to my let me last couple of questions. Mussolini does not only want to build the mediterranean roman empire into africa, also across the adriatic into albanian greece, and he doesnt do so well, and the nazis have to bail him out. Let me come back to the point you made at the beginning that fits in, the reputation of italian soldiers is they did not fight to their death for mussolini once italy entered the war in 1941. What is your view about that . I know you write about in the book. What is the performance of the italians given the deep indoctrination of children who have now become soldiers in the 1930s. Why does it work out so badly for mussolini . Dr. Mclean that is a complicated question i cannot thoroughly answer either with my just timer constraints. I do think, again, the comparison, certainly italian casualty rates did not reach german or soviet or japanese casualty rates in world war ii, but they still lost 10 of their combat troops, which is about the amount of casualties the u. S. Had in the vietnam war, which was pretty debilitating for the u. S. Its not like they all fled and did not stand and fight. There were plenty of them who died for their country. For an ideal, i dont know. It is hard to say how many soldiers of any nation ofned up and died because the specific doctrine in and of itself. Think thereaid, i were plenty of italian children, and by children i mean 17 and 16yearolds who joined the military early because they believed in this. There were a lot of italians who joined in the Italian Military for the spanish civil war and the ethiopian war. World war ii was not popular. Italy was not prepared. Mussolini was not ready. He did not think fighting what happened until 1942. He had also spent most of his materialwarchest and in ethiopia and spain. There are a lot of comp locating a lot ofonly complicating factors, only one of which is how completely indoctrinated the children, generations were. If an 11yearold rights in their schoolbook they would die for their country, that is a long way from when they have to be on the battlefield and they are starving and riddled with the disease and freezing and having to figure out how to do that. Dr. Bischof let me ask you my last question and then throw it to the audience. I know you dont write a lot thet world war ii, you end book in 1940, but you mention in the conclusion that italy drops out of the war in 1940 three, and in 1945, the war is over. And in italy comes a period of what happens after the war, how do you deal with the war after the war. I think it raises the question the School System has been for now 20 years proffering this kind of ideology weve been talking about. The teachers were teaching it in schools. How do you then know to a republican italy and a new School System that teaches new values rather than fascist values . In germany and austria after the war, there was a period of de nazification. Was it the same . Dr. Mclean the short answer is no. Italy was in the position of having gotten out of the war in 1943 and claiming to whomever would listen that they actually fought on the side of the allies in the end. There was this awkward situation in 1945, especially because it had a very active Resistance Movement of what to do with the former fascists. Italy had not been fascist since 1943, but a lot of administrators were the same administrators who had been in power in 1939. Right . But we also see by 1960, a ,ajority of judges in italy they had been judges under the fascist period. Ascisization. Def there were very few war trials in italy. In terms of dedication, the process was very superficial, in part because of finances. They could not afford new books. Part of it was ideological. They got rid of the books that cleare most ardent and language, racial language. The antisemitism. Really just the antisemitism and overt dimensions of fascism. Otherwise, if it was just talking about the spiritual strength of the italian nation and italian people, that was fine. Dr. Bischof part of my final question was also about the issue of memory. You started out with that when you were in bologna, you learned about the italian resistance, and of course, italian memory was much like a french and german and austrian memory, they wanted all to be resistors after the war and they were not. How would you characterize italian memory of the war . Have they come around to accept that many of them were fascist . Dr. Mclean italy has gone through a variety of periods of reckoning and denial of their fascist past in terms of officially. And culturally, as we see in films, a change over time. Um it is true that in northern italy, there was a significant Resistance Movement, and a lot of the resistors had been fascist, too. Remainedf the fascists under the party of the nazis when they were in northern italy. It is more complicated picture, and if they can latch onto that image, they can deny the other part. I talked to a wine store owner a few years ago and was joking , which tourists did he like less, germans or americans . He said clearly the germans, we fought against them. Denials this idea, the of everything that happened that is quite striking. Dr. Bischof thank you, dr. Mclean. We will throw it to the audience for questions. Thank you very much. Dr. Mclean thank you. [applause] we will get to the questions from the audience before we get to those online. If you subtract world war ii, say you are in 1938, how did the world and italians feel about their educational system . Did they think it had improved . Did everybody think it was going off the rails . Dr. Mclean thats a good question. The question is was the Education System going off of the rails or did they think positively or negatively about the Education System . I think generally, the view was positive not necessarily because they were thinking about the pedagogy in it, the racial eddie ideationy asian of who italians were, there were summer camps who were free particular for kids who were poor, going to the mounds or see sites, Public Health initiatives, free lunches for kids, and also giving Cod Liver Oil and checkups. That was remarkably positive. The Education System is one of the ways they were also able to malariaople about and italy was able to eradicate valeria within a decade eradicate malaria within a decade after world war ii. Mussoliniallowed allowed the trains to run on time and that was great. Itself, of the pedagogy i dont have a real answer for that. But it is a good question. What was the association between mussolinis school hisricts in terms of relationship on and off again with pope pius the 11th . Was the pedagogy different in the catholic School System, and how so, and how did they resolve that . Dr. Mclean thats an important point. The issue of the catholic inrch, particular because 1929 for those of you who dont know, they basically established vatican city as a country. Mussolini,antly to for the first time, the Catholic Church officially recognized the kingdom of italy as a sovereign nation. The Catholic Church had not recognized italy as its own country since it unified, which was a major problem for an overwhelmingly catholic population. Have a fairlyto handsoff approach with the catholic urging catholic education. It is true that people who were antifascist often found refuge in Catholic Schools and the catholic Youth Programs mussolini allowed to continue. That is not to say there were not extraordinary tensions between them and real efforts on both sides the pushback. Ut yes, absolutely did allow, or mandated religion to be taught and all Public Schools by lay teachers. Just answer the question is anabout memory, there official italian memorial day for world war ii, on the 10th of february. It is commemorated for the changing of the border that occurred in 1947. It is a divided one. What you tend to get is people who are descendents of the is azouli, and some of them were quite young when they left the adriatic, they meet. Others remember the italian participation in the holocaust and they meet at another location. I would argue it is very much divided memory. This is question is initiated in 2005, so comparatively recently. Why so late . Is about thestion you had, if we could have it back . It was an image yes. Abyssinia, asades it is known, one of the justifications for it is they are going there to free slaves. Image ofars to be an slaves being freed. Correct me if im wrong. Could you tell us a little bit about how this discourse of freeing the slaves was pursued. Did it come to an educational level in primary schools or was it just something said at the league of nations . Dr. Mclean clearly you know more about the emory for world war ii than i do. What i would say is the more popular and well attended day is the day of partisans on april 25, which is a national holiday, and is celebrated all over italy. I think that certainly the , the late date is a clear sign of the mixed memory of it and the very ambivalent feelings italians have over world war ii. Invasion ofthe yes, oneor abyssinia, of the major lines of argument hadthat ethiopia still slavery and therefore they were were,ians and therefore should be controlled by a better civilization. Narrativehis is a that is furthered by the fact that ethiopia is a member of the league of nations, but only provisionally. The provision is that ethiopia is supposed to get rid of slavery. Mussolini argues he has a right to invade because they dont. Hecourse, once he invades, frees the slaves and then has them working for the fascists, so as not really freeing the slaves and it is actually much more like this postcard and others, where they have images downhill. People can you speak to the fact that i dont know if there were more than one, but there was at least one camp, in the trieste area, i dont know if there were others but the notion of that and how the rationale, the mixed memory bit we discussed a minute ago. I was curious. Dr. Mclean so, part of the italians not being racist and particularly the antisemitism being imposed upon them, one of the arguments is that no jews were ever deported from fascist occupied territories until after 1943. But there were concentration camps and italy. Dressed amp near the death camp was a death camp, but the italian say it doesnt exist because it was occupied by germany and therefore is not italian. But the concentration camps that were fascist run, organized, again,t death camps, and by comparison, they were quite humane, right, in terms of comparisons to our general image of say, auschwitz. They could wear their own clothing, they can have packages sent to them. But by any other measure, they were pretty notoriously miserable places where both italian jews and foreign jews were kept after 1938. One more question here. Answered partly of my question in relation to somebody else, but i wanted to know how italy regarded itself as a colonial power both in arabion to the french with north africa, and the british and germans and french and black africa. Pre1936 so, well, throughout, they think of themselves as more humane good they think of themselves as more humane. They think of themselves like the french as more of catholic colonizers and inc. Of themselves more as people, they are there to civilize these populations and they are there just to help them realize the great riches of their lands, right . A. K. A. , take them. But the reality is much more wars in libya and ethiopia are some of the most gruesome of the period, and it was during the ethiopian invasion that they used, was the first use of wheezing gas of poison gas from an airplane in history. They did it over red cross hospitals. No, um there was very little humanity to this, right . And similar in the libyan sort what am i trying to say the attempt to get rid of the libyan uprising from the 1920s. At home mussolini argued they were more humane and civilized than the french or , the realityrmans is much different. Please join me in thanking both dr. Mclean and dr. Bischof for an engaging conversation. Of hows you an idea insidious and enmeshed fascist states were in world war ii. Thank you for sharing your insights and findings with us, and for so ably leading the conversation tonight. Of mclean will sign copies her book at the back of the room, and be sure to mark your calendars and check our website for our programming. Our next meet the Author Program will be as we celebrate the life and work of one of our own, hugh ambrose, who we lost far too soon in 2015. Liberated spirits, published posthumously, has been released, and we will discuss it. Eden mclean. To this was your First Program and i hope it will not be your last. Please join me in giving a last round of applause to our gue sts. [applause] having lived through a loss of confidence in our institutions, and wave of cynicism that has left us unable to trust what we are told by anyone who calls themselves an expert, it becomes difficult for us to arise to a challenge like this. Our first reaction is to say they are lying to us and only in it for themselves, and a lot of our National Institutions have to take on the challenge of persuading people again that they exist for us, are here for the country. Sunday, june 7 at noon eastern, the noon author of a time to build. Join the conversation with your phone calls, tweet, texts and facebook messages. Watch on cspan2. Presidency, we hear from president lyndon b. Johnson, who traveled to Johns Hopkins university in the spring of 1965 to explain american policy in vietnam. Why mustthe question we take this painful road . He went on to declare that the u. S. Would not be defeated and would not withdraw before South Vietnam had gained independence. The video is provided by the lbj president ial library in austin tested austin, texas
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