PILPUL Anti-fascism

By Anna Foa

On June 9, 1937, 81 years ago, two antifascist Jews, the Rosselli brothers, were killed by hit men belonging to the right-wing extremist French movement La Cagoule in Bagnoles-de-l’Orne, Normandy. It was the Italian fascist regime which commissioned the murder, first and foremost Ciano e Roatta.
Carlo Rosselli had been living in Paris since 1929, after his adventurous escape from the confinement in Lipari with Emilio Lussu and Francesco Fausto Nitti. In Paris, he founded the Giustizia e Libertà Movement (Justice and Freedom, translator’s note) and then moved to Spain to fight for the Republic. His brother Nello, after spending many years in confinement, was living in Florence when he unexpectedly got the passport, thanks to the intervention of Gioacchino Volpe, and used it to go see his brother who was recovering from phlebitis in Normandy. There, the fascist assassins killed them both.
On June 10, 1924, thirteen years before, on the other hand, the socialist MP Giacomo Matteotti was kidnapped in Rome by fascist hit men. His body was found in August. His murder, which temporarily made things difficult for Mussolini, also started the suppression of freedom and the total “fascistization” of the country.

*Anna Foa is a historian. Translated by Ilaria Vozza, student at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of Trieste University, intern at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities.