ABSTRACT
The preparations aimed at the practical implementation of internment intensified and were perfected following the German military attack on France. Benito Mussolini’s decree of September 4, 1940, established the modalities for how foreign internees should be treated by the Italian government. The anti-Jewish laws, enacted in Italy in the years 1938–1939, did not include references to potential internment procedures. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs established its stance in a memo of June 15, 1940, where in principle it agreed with the need to intern “German Jews or those of countries that had fallen under German control.” The more or less significant presence of Gypsy internees has been ascertained in the camps set up by the Ministry of the Interior in Boiano, Agnone, Tossicia, Ferramonti, Tremiti, Vinchiaturo, and other locations dedicated to internamento libero. The reasons the authorities used to determine the internment of Italian citizens on their own were sufficient to determine their confinement.
