Ex-Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi defends some of Mussolini’s policies
During the inauguration of a Holocaust memorial in Milan,
former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Benito Mussolini's fascist
regime had carried out some positive policies.
“The fact of the racial laws was the worst fault of a
leader, Mussolini, who in many other ways did well,” Berlusconi said in
informal remarks to the media at the ceremony on Sunday, International
Holocaust Remembrance Day. The memorial dedicated at Milan’s train station is
located at Track 21, from which 700 Milan Jews were deported to Nazi camps.
The ceremony, attended by Prime Minister Mario Monti and
other senior state, civic and religious leaders, was one of scores of events
taking place this week in Italy to mark the Holocaust memorial day.
Political figures and Jewish leaders slammed Berlusconi’s
remarks.
Berlusconi, who is running for prime minister in general
elections next month, said Mussolini had chosen to ally Italy with Nazi Germany
for policy reasons that were separate from the persecution of the Jews. He said
it was difficult today to put oneself in the shoes of decision-makers of that
time.
Mussolini’s government, Berlusconi said, “fearing that
the German power would win, certainly preferred to be allied with Hitler’s
Germany rather than oppose it.” Italy, he said, “did not have the same
responsibility” as Germany for the Holocaust, but “there was a connivance that
at the beginning was not totally conscious.”
Berlusconi’s remarks drew immediate condemnation from
political figures and Jewish leaders. Renzo Gattegna, the president of the
Union of Italian Jewish Communities, said his statements “appear not only
superficial and inappropriate, but where they suggest that Italy decided to
persecute and exterminate its Jews to please a powerful ally, are devoid of a
moral sense and historical basis.”
Among those condemning Berlusconi’s remarks was left-wing
lawmaker Dario Franceschini, who tweeted that they “are shameful and an insult
to history and memory.”
Daniele Nahum, the former spokesman of the Milan Jewish
community and a former vice president, called Berlusconi’s statement
“shocking.”
“Let’s not forget that, besides the racist laws, the
Mussolini regime canceled freedom of thought and expression, was the author of
massacres in Ethiopia and created that discriminatory framework against
homosexuals, Roma and all the other minorities that we are still combating,” he
said.
Writing in the Italian version of the Huffington Post,
longtime anti-Berlusconi activist Gianfranco Mascia announced he planned to
press charges with the state prosecutor against Berlusconi for "apology
for Fascism," which in Italy is a
crime.
Berlusconi, despite being embroiled in sex and financial
scandals, has gained in the polls in recent weeks. Monti also is running to
retain his post. In 2003, Berlusconi recieved the Anti-Defamation League's
Distinguished Statesman award.
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