Why one could end up in fascist prisons.

Introduction (Francesco Bertolucci, journalist): What did one have to do to end up in prison in Fascist Italy? What was prison life like then and how did these change during the 20-year period? We talked about this with Giovanni Taurasi, a historian and author of research and books also on Fascist prisons Taurasi, what was it like to end up in prison in Fascist Italy?

Answer John Taurasi, historian

In jail in fascist Italy anyone could have ended up there. In the sense that it was enough to violate regulations, we were under a dictatorship. We are outraged today, when we witness around the world events like Patrick zaki or Regeni tortured and killed in prison. But we don’t think that 80 to 90 years ago the same thing happened in Italy: people ended up in jail even for telling a joke about the Duce. One of the first people convicted by the special court precisely was convicted because he had called the Duce a stinker and he got three years in prison. You would go to prison for, let’s say subversive activity that was a little more organized, but also trivial. It was enough, for example, to have a clandestine copy of a newspaper, because then
from the second half of the 1920s onward the free press is forbidden, of an underground newspaper like L’Unità or l’Avanti or by others and one would automatically end up in jail. You would end up in jail because you would gather three or more people to discuss politics and question the regime .With the special fascist court the sentences were heavy and they were to be sentenced simply for crimes of opinion. We are talking about young people from 20-30 years old who were getting 5-10-15 years in prison because they had an opinion that differed precisely from the fascist regime.

Question Bertolucci: With the arrival of political opponents, prison life also changes, so to speak.

Taurasi response

Then at some point let’s say the prisons of dissidents the antifascists and so there is a problem also in the management of precisely the prisons because there is a contamination. So let’s call it that between antifascists, that is, between people in prison for crimes of opinion, precisely political crimes, and people who were instead in prison in jail for normal crimes. That’s also why at a certain point the regime tries to separate the antifascists from the common prisoners let’s say because through a direct relationship with the antifascists an antifascist consciousness is also created among the so-called common prisoners. In particular from 1932 political prisoners and those deemed less dangerous are concentrated in three prisons and following amnesty, they are freed. The first amnesty, one of the first, most important amnesties, is the amnesty of 32, the ten-year anniversary of fascism. There will be others as well. But ance this amnesties were not done out of generosity on the part of the regime but precisely because they could no longer contain within the prisons the 5,000 plus convicted by the special court for political reasons.

Question Bertolucci: What was life like in fascist prisons?

Taurasi response

Well, obviously prisons were unhealthy places, and prison life is a very hard life. Even today we know that he had life in Italian prisons is a very very hard life and there are also sanitary conditions, sometimes very delicate. In that case even more so because we also go very far back in time, the prison was indeed very hard. There is a famous book called la cattedra e il bugliolo, written by Antonio Pesenti an anti-fascist dissident. Already from the title there is a reference to this combination: the chair because indeed the prison for many antifascists was also a place of political training. Among them were many inmates and dissidents who ended up in prison who did not even have the
fifth grade and who in the direct relationship in what are called collectives with other antifascists, particularly antifascists of communist but also socialist persuasion, begin to learn of things. They had never even gone to elementary school maybe but in contact with an anti-fascist who had graduated, who had done studies, who had more training, within these collectives many antifascists learn to write, they learn especially to speak let’s say in public in some way, they learn to do math … they also learn sometimes some languages even foreign languages or some science subjects. This is precisely what the chair is in Pesenti’s title, that is, prison as a university of antifascism, as a place of formation. But on the other hand, Pesenti’s book, which went through prison. during fascism, it recalls the bugliol, that is, the receptacle for bodily needs. Here one must always think of the fascist prison, especially as this second aspect of this pair, that is, the place of the repression, of suffering. Not only for male antifascists, but also particularly for women antifascists who recount for example in their memoirs to say that how after a few days that they they were entering the prison, in these very unhealthy conditions, to them, for example, even their cycles were blocked for say to give some trivial examples. But even for men if we go and see what the paper was. matriculate that accounted for what the inmate’s health status was, we see how progressively dozens, hundreds of antifascists see their health status deteriorate, and significantly so. On the other hand chant we think of perhaps the most famous antifascist, namely Gramsci, he too precisely if we trace his his path in prison we see how his health condition deteriorated until it led to his death.

Bertolucci question: Is there a story that has stuck with you in your research? Among the opponents in prison were those who are Was he then deported?

Taurasi response

Yes, of course, there were also many antifascists who came out of prison after September 8 and were deported, either for political reasons or for racial reasons. For example, I remember the story of an antifascist his name was Giovanni Domaschi who was born in Verona and had been sentenced for several years for his antifascism during the regime, he had also tried several prison escapes, a character with a truly extraordinary life in this respect. And after the fall of fascism, he was a neighbor to the anarchist world as well, he was then taken to the at the Renicci internment camp in Anghiari in the province of Arezzo, where the anarchists precisely were freed last only after the armistice in September 43. Domaschi then returned to Verona, participated in the resistance, joined the National Liberation Committee, and on July 14, 44, was arrested after a raid that led to the capture of several members of the National Liberation Committee. He is tortured, horribly tortured, and after about 20 days is handed over with other arrested antifascists and partisans to the SS. In August he is transferred the Gries concentration camp in Bolzano and in September then deported to Flossenburg and then to a subcamp in Dachau where he will die in February 45. Domaschi’s fate, path, and life belongs, of course, also to many other antifascists who were deported after September 8, 1943.