In 1938, Fascist Italy introduced racial laws targeting Jews, forcing many to flee abroad. The case of a dismissed Italian officer, Massimo Adolfo Vitale, highlights the challenges faced by those seeking refuge and the bureaucratic barriers within Britain. It shows the Foreign Office’s reluctance to take responsibility for the Jews as such while demonstrating the importance attributed to citizenship and nationality.

This EHRI Document Blogpost, by former EHRI Conny Kristel Fellow Luca Fiorito, examines Britain’s response to Italian antisemitism, revealing overlooked complexities in international politics and Jewish relief efforts.

When in the autumn of 1931 Major Duncan McCallum and his wife Violet were travelling from Kenya to British Somaliland, the local Italian provincial governor Commendatore Massimo Adolfo Vitale hosted them in Italian Somaliland. From this encounter spurred a friendship between the British Major and the Italian Officer, with the both of them remaining in correspondence until 1937, when the contact was temporarily lost due to Vitale’s transfer to Libya. Only in February 1939 McCallum gained new information on the whereabouts of his friend, as he received a letter by Vitale, sent from Derna in Libya on the 21December 1938. Calling on their friendship, Vitale asked “for a big favour, in one of the very saddest moments of (his) life.” After thirty-four years in the government’s service, both in the military and in the colonial administration, numerous military decorations earned by himself, his son and other members of his family, the Italian Officer was dismissed from service for the sole motive of being the son of two Jews and thus falling victim to the recently introduced Italian racial laws. (…) Read more on the EHRI Document Blog.

Image: Letter from Duncan McCallum to David V. Kelly, 3^rd April 1939, Source: The National Archives.