Co-authored by David Kertzer, professor of international and public affairs, and published in the Journal of Modern Italian Studies, the study explores how Mussolini’s government determined who was considered Jewish under the 1938 racial laws, focusing on thousands of appeals from individuals seeking reclassification as Aryan. Drawing on more than 2,100 cases from Italy’s Central State Archives, the paper highlights how Guido Buffarini-Guidi, undersecretary of internal affairs, often deferred complex cases to Mussolini himself. The findings reveal that the regime’s decisions were driven less by biological definitions of race and more by religious and political considerations, exposing the inconsistencies at the heart of Fascist racial policy.
Date
October 3, 2025
Mussolini decides: Determining racial identity under Italy’s racial laws
A new paper co-authored by David Kertzer examines how Italy’s Fascist regime enforced its 1938 racial laws and the contradictions within its own ideology.