Italian popular myth about Fascist Italy, the Holocaust, and World War II-related crimes
For the 1964 Italian film of the same name, from which the term derives, see Attack and Retreat.
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A form of historical revisionism which emerged under the post-war republic, it was argued that Italian soldiers had been "good" or "decent people" (brava gente) who had acted with humanity and compassion, supposedly inherent Italian values, in contrast to their ideologically motivated and brutal German allies.[3] In particular, it argued that the Italians had not participated in, or even had opposed, the Nazi persecution of Jews in occupied parts of Eastern Europe.[4][5] By extension, the term is sometimes applied to describe popular beliefs about the Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–36) or non-Jewish responses to the Holocaust in Italy.[6]
The 2012 report of the Italian-German Historical Commission noted that "Just as today the myth of the decent behaviour of the Wehrmacht on Italian soil cannot survive in Germany, the survival of the myth of Italiani brava gente in reference to the Second World War is equally unacceptable".[7]
^Paolo Favero, Italians, the “Good People”: Reflections on National Self-Representation in Contemporary Italian Debates on Xenophobia and War, in Outlines - Critical practice studies, No. 2 (2010), p. 138-153
^Diego Guzzi, The myth of the "Good Italian", the antisemitism and the colonial crimes, in Constelaciones - Revista de Teoría Crítica, No. 4 (2012), p. 255-264
^ abcPetrusewicz, Marta (2004). "The hidden pages of contemporary Italian history: War crimes, war guilt and collective memory". Journal of Modern Italian Studies. 9 (3): 269–270. doi:10.1080/1354571042000254700. S2CID143230795.
Focardi, Filippo; Klinkhammer, Lutz (2004). "The Question of Fascist Italy's War Crimes: The Construction of a Self-Acquitting Myth (1943 – 1948)". Journal of Modern Italian Studies. 9 (3): 330–348. doi:10.1080/1354571042000254755. S2CID143876226.
Fogu, Claudio (2006). "Italiani brava gente: The Legacy of Fascist Historical Culture on Italian Politics of Memory". In Lebow, Richard Ned; Kansteiner, Wulf; Fogu, Claudio (eds.). The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. pp. 147–176. ISBN978-0-8223-8833-3.
