Between Protection and Complicity: Guido Lospinoso, Fascist Italy and the Holocaust in Italian-occupied Southeastern France

Police Inspector-General Guido Lospinoso has long been praised for the rescue of Jews before September 8, 1943 in Italian-occupied Southeastern France. This study proves that Lospinoso never embarked on a personal mission to do so. In fact, he implemented orders to evacuate foreign Jews from the Mediterranean coast under Italian rule. He was initially obedient when Rome ordered him to surrender some of those Jews to the Nazis—although nobody carried the order to completion. Ultimately Lospinoso’s actions epitomize the complexities of Fascist Italy’s stand vis-à-vis the Nazi policy of extermination.