4. The racial laws shocked the Italian people, who frequently subverted them
Italy’s Jewish population was relatively small, and unlike in Germany and other Northern European countries, was for the most part fully assimilated, as it had been for centuries. The first of the antisemitic laws was enacted by Mussolini just weeks before the agreement between Germany and Italy was formalized as the Pact of Steel. Nazi influence on Fascist policies was obvious to the Italian people, and resentment against the Germans and the Italian Fascists was prevalent throughout Italy, in both the larger cities and in the rural areas. The laws which were passed to appease Hitler cost the Fascists support in their own country.
On Tiber Island, several Jewish staff members were retained in their posts, through the falsification of the necessary documents. The falsification of records was known by Dr. Borromeo as well as by the hospital’s prior, Father Maurizio Bialek. The hospital provided a safe haven in such a manner for Vittorio Sacerdoti. Dr. Sacerdoti was Jewish and the nephew of one of the doctors from whom Borromeo had received his medical training. As Italy’s involvement in the Second World War began, the Tiber Island hospital became a haven for other Jews, Italian concentration camps and Jewish ghettoes in the cities were established, though their populations were not subject to deportation.