The annals of Italian history document how Giovanni Ravalli battled against criminals and pursued gangs, including the one that stole the famous painting, The Nativity by Caravaggio, from a Palermo church in 1969. Ravalli was a police prefect who maintained the safety of the streets and was even an adviser to the prime minister. His illustrious career in the establishment led to a comfortable retirement and a residence on 179 Via Cristoforo Colombo in South Rome. Here, he spent his days tending to his plants and admiring the beautiful view until his demise on April 30, 1998, at the age of 89.
However, the same history books are silent about a Greek policeman named Isaac Sinanoglu who was horrifically tortured over several days in 1941. He had his teeth extracted with pliers and was dragged by a galloping horse’s tail. They also neglect to mention the rape cases and the shocking order to pour boiling oil over 70 prisoners.
After the war, Ravalli, who was once a lieutenant in the Italian army’s Pinerolo division, faced the death penalty in Greece for these horrible crimes. The Italian government intervened and secured his release by threatening to withhold their reparations. Ravalli went back home to a sensational career that was questioned only once, in 1992. At the time, American historian Michael Palumbo published a book that highlighted the atrocities Ravalli was responsible for. But the police prefect was backed by influential friends, and he threatened to sue, leading to the book’s cancellation.
This lack of accountability and denial of wartime crimes have hit Italy hard. The country has managed to evade blame for mass atrocities, even those that happened before and during the Second World War. Those responsible for these heinous acts, some even alive to this day, remain protected.
Benito Mussolini’s army committed grave offences. They mercilessly murdered thousands of innocent civilians, bombed the Red Cross, released poisonous gas, and starved babies in concentration camps. Italians have failed to face up to the extent of the fascist crimes compared to Japan’s recognition of its pre-war and wartime responsibilities. James Walston, an American University of Rome historian, believes that Italy has not come to terms with such crimes.
The attempts at covering up these crimes continue even today, but the source of the conspiracy is finally being revealed. Historian Filippo Focardi has managed to find documents from the foreign ministry and diplomatic cables that explain the fabrication of this lie. In 1946, the republic, legitimized by anti-fascists who fought alongside the allies, pledged to extradite war criminals. There was a commission of inquiry, lists of names, arrest warrants, and denunciations, but it was all a charade. Extraditions might anger voters who revered the military and jeopardize their efforts to portray Italy as a victim of fascism. Focardi’s research suggests that civil servants had orders to fake justice. The prime minister, Alcide De Gasperi’s typical instructions on January 19, 1948, to gain time, read, "Try to gain time, avoid answering requests."
Despite protests from Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Ethiopia, and Libya, the elaborate charade succeeded in frustrating the United Nations’ efforts to investigate war crimes. There was no Nuremberg for Italian criminals. The deception that followed was a successful attempt to avoid handing over implicated commanders and officials by citing expediency. This conspiracy managed to ensure that there was no punishment for Italian war criminals.
However, given all the evidence against them, their escape was significant. General Pietro Badoglio and General Rudolfo Graziani committed the most atrocious acts in the war. General Mario Roatta’s monstrous crimes against humanity also claimed many Yugoslav lives. Despite the fact that Roatta was infamous for killing thousands of Yugoslav civilians, the soldiers that served under him even wrote letters home acknowledging that they killed entire families every night, beating and shooting them without mercy.
All of these acts were in stark contrast to the claims the Italian government made about being the victims of fascism.
Italy’s wartime offenses were not as widespread and brutal as Germany’s or Japan’s, and it is true that some Italian soldiers showed kindness by rescuing Jews and being friendly towards the civilians. These instances of humanity in the midst of chaos have now been elevated in the country’s memory to the point of obscuring the atrocities that were also committed. Part of this is due to British bias against Italian soldiers, with many British historians mocking them as opera buffoons or pitiable beings caught up in the war. Despite being chronicled in specialist publications, the crimes committed by Italian soldiers have never been widely known. Even today, many Italians talk about their country’s role in the war in terms of resistance against the Germans or the help given to Jews, rather than acknowledging the darker aspects of their country’s past. Unlike other countries that have explored their wartime history, Italian awareness of the subject has not evolved much beyond the 1950s, when filmmakers were arrested for making films that did not toe the official line on the occupation of Greece.
In comparison to Austria or Japan, Italy has been given a pass for its wartime offenses. A film like Mediterraneo, depicting the playful interactions between Italian soldiers and Greek locals, was highly acclaimed. Similarly, the glorification of Italian martyrdom in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin was not questioned. Conversely, the BBC documentary Fascist Legacy, which highlighted Italian crimes in Africa and the Balkans and their subsequent cover-up, was met with outrage by the Italian ambassador in London, and has yet to be shown in Italy. Even researchers who tackled this subject, like Michael Palumbo, the consultant for Fascist Legacy, have experienced physical harm and death threats from Italian journalists and former soldiers. Though a few historians have sought to dismantle the myth that Italians were colonialists with a human face, there remains a deeply held belief that Italian victimhood during this time must always be emphasized over Italian responsibility for atrocities.
However, there are signs that this victimhood narrative is beginning to crumble. Scholars like Giorgio Rochat are starting to challenge the official narrative, arguing that the country has refused to acknowledge that some of its soldiers carried out acts of genocide and that war criminals have gone unpunished. Angelo Del Boca, another historian, has pointed out that some of these perpetrators have even been celebrated and lauded in the popular imagination. Although these researchers may not be many, their work has triggered a tentative reassessment of Italy’s past. Recently, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi apologized to Greece on behalf of Italy for its invasion during the war, and newspapers such as La Stampa and Manifesto have featured articles on new research concerning Italy’s war crimes.