Remarks by Rome's mayor Gianni Alemanno that he does not regard fascism as "the absolute evil" have provoked a wave of protest, including from Italy's Jewish community. When asked the question "Was Fascism the absolute evil?" while on a trip to Jerusalem, Alemanno told Italy's leading newspaper, 'Corriere della Sera', "I don't think so and I never thought it. Fascism was a more complex phenomenon."
"Many people joined up in good faith and I don't feel like labeling them with that definition. The racial laws desired under fascism, that spurred its political and cultural end, were absolute evil," Alemanno, a former member of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement MSI who later joined the conservative National Alliance, told the paper.
The comments immediately sparked protests from leftist MPs who accused the mayor of trying to separate Italy's fascist past under dictator Benito Mussolini from its sins. Mussolini ruled Italy for more than two decades, allied the country with Nazi Germany and enacted anti-Semitic laws that banned Jews from attending schools and seeking public jobs and that ultimately led to the death of nearly 6,000 Italian Jews in Nazi camps.
"Racial laws were voted for by the fascist regime. It is difficult to separate the two things. When talking about important things, we need to be very careful in the statements we make, " Renzo Gattegna, head of the Union of Italian Jewish communities, said. "We are waiting for an explanation," said Riccardo Pacifici, a representative for Rome's Jewish community. Walter Veltroni, the leader of the center-left opposition and Alemanno's predecessor as mayor of Rome, said he intended to resign from the committee of the Shoah Museum in protest at the remarks.