Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Italy’s wartime fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, has said that the anti-Semitic racial laws decreed by her grandfather in 1938 were a mistake.
In interviews published Sunday in several Italian publications, she dissociated fascists from the current wave of neo-Nazi skinheads.
“The racial laws are unacceptable,” Mussolini, a member of Parliament for the neo-fascist MSI party, was quoted as saying in an interview with the La Stampa newspaper.
“The racial laws were introduced by `German’ fascism, under the influence of Hitler. The true, Mussolini-style fascist is not racist and condemns those who want to represent fascists as racists,” she said.
She said her grandfather erred in “allying himself with Hitler, in an international political situation in which he ended up with his hands tied, without a way of escape.”
She said that during World War II, “what happened in Germany did not happen in Italy. Many Jews were saved.
“I repeat, those (racial) laws were an error, but taking stock of the entire 20 years (of Mussolini’s rule), my judgment of fascism is positive,” she said.
She said the violent, swastika-waving skinheads trouble her and are not true fascists. The MIS party, she said, rejects their actions.
“If I see the fascio (a bundle of wood symbolizing unity) used as a symbol, I am happy. When I see the swastika, I am not,” she said.
“These symbols do not form part of our culture; they belong to other ideologies. The black shirt and the raised-arm salute don’t scare me. They are a way of communicating, above all by our young people. They are symbols that form part of our culture,” she said.
When skinheads shout “Duce, Duce,” she said, “I am offended. My grandfather is not what they think he was. He was not racist.”
She told the newspaper La Repubblica, “I have Nazi documents that criticized my grandfather because he did not execute orders for deportation (of Jews). The Duce always respected human dignity.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
