The Italian Concentration Camps as State Terrorism and their Consequences

Abstract

The author deals with the deportation of civilians to concentration camps as a form of terrorisation by the Italian occupiers during the Second World War in the part of Slovenia called the Ljubljana Province. The Italian system of concentration camps is far less known than the German. The Italian occupying forces started with the deportations of the civilian population in Spring 1942. Because of the resistance movement they found themselves between the hammer and the anvil. Had they not reacted they would appear weak and inefficient, which would only encourage further resistance. But since they did react they heavily encroached upon the civil liberties and the democratic rights of the population of the occupied Ljubljana Province. However, the consequences of their colonialist rule lingered long after their withdrawal. A successful implementation by the Italian occupying authorities of the principle "divide and rule" resulted in a division in the collective notions about terrorism among the population of the occupied Ljubljana Province.