WHO
CAME
DEPORTED
FROM ITALY
WHO
CAME
DEPORTED
FROM ITALY
WHO
CAME
DEPORTED
FROM ITALY

Deportation from Italy

Deportation: Involved about 800,000 Italians forcibly transferred to the Third Reich after September 8, 1943. Of these 600,000 are Italian Military internees (IMI), about 100,000 workers among the forced. It must be remembered that other 100,000 workers had been sent to Germany before the armistice under intergovernmental agreements.

  • Destinations: At least 40.000 among IMIs, forced laborers, political and racial deportees were sent to concentration (KL) and extermination camps, with a survival rate of 10%.

Deportation from Italy

  • 123 transportation left between September 8, 1943 and April 25, 1945. The main destinations were Dachau (37 transports), Auschwitz (32) and Mauthausen (21).

  • Involved:

    • 70 convoys from Trieste, a focal point for deportation also from the territories of former Yugoslavia.

    • Other cities: Bolzano (13), Fossoli (7), Verona (6), Milan (5), Rome and Turin (3 each).

    • Jews and political opponents: over 8,000 Jews were deported from Italy (mostly to Auschwitz), while about 25,000 political opponents ended upin KL:Dachau (9,311), Mauthausen (6,615), Buchenwald (2,123), Flossenbürg (1,798)

Stages of Deportation

  1. First phase (September-November 1943): Transportation organized locally without centralized structures. Jews and political prisoners were the first deportees.

  2. Second phase (December 1943-August 1944): Increase in deportations. Fossoli became a center of operations for Jews and politicians.

  3. Third phase (August 1944-April 1945): The Bolzano Dulag replaced Fossoli. Growing centralization and transportation to Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, Dachau and Ravensbrück.

Role of Republican Fascism

  • Active cooperation in the arrest and deportation of Jews and political opponents.

  • Fascist concentration camps: Fossoli, Bolzano and the Risiera di San Sabba were used as transit points. The “new” Fossoli camp came under German control in March 1944.

  • Most of the people captured during roundups and raids, before being deported to the Third Reich’s lagers or transit camps, were held in RSI prisons, which became key hubs of the deportation machine from Italy.

Audio Insights​

Racism, ethnic cleansing and economics. The deportation to Nazi camps of millions of people occurred for multiple reasons as well as that to Italian concentration camps used by fascism in its wars of invasion. Nazi lagers that were a universe unto themselves with a language of their own. In these interviews with historians, we delve into these often little touched topics.

The numbers of deportation and its economic importance
Interview with Claudio Vercelli,
historian (transcript)
Invasion, prisons and repression. Mussolini's deportees.
Interview with Alessandra Kersevan, historian(transcript)
So many arms for the Third Reich.
Italian forced laborers for Hitler
Interview with Roberta Mira,
professor at the University of Bologna. (transcript)
The language spoken in Nazi concentration camps
Interview with Donatella Chiapponi, historian (transcript)