(Mirror.)

Paola Trevisan has pointed out the continuities in liberal and Italian fascist policy (Trevisan 2013, 2017, 2019). She mentions two 1926 circulars which aimed at only foreign [Roma], like the prewar circulars. The wording is strikingly similar to that of the 1910 administrative measures: it requests that the prefects “purge the national territory of the presence of [Romani] caravans, who, it would be superfluous to remind you, pose a danger in regard to security and public hygiene because of their characteristic behaviors” (Guerrazzi 2004).

Thus, it seems that the creation of a “state of exception” for [Roma] on Italian territory continued. In many cases, those expelled were not accepted by any other territory, placing them in the condition of homines sacri, subjected to the arbitrary will of the executive. As Rosa Corbelletto points out, in order to get rid of unwanted [Roma and Sinti], public security authorities often had to, in the dead of night, sneak them over the Austro‐Hungarian border, using mountainous, treacherous trails, endangering the life of the old, the very young, and the infirm (Corbelletto 2008).

The prewar model, continued into the 1920s, proved unsustainable. After these long treks, [Roma and Sinti] would often be caught on the other side of the border and returned to Italian territory. The one advantage of this policy for Romani families who had claims to Italian nationality was that some were able to assimilate and escape their categorization as [Roma].

The growing apparatus of state control and attempts to bring uncontrolled populations under state surveillance mean that informal executive measures, like expulsion, worked less well when the receiving states more easily rejected noncitizens.

[…]

Paolo […] Zappa’s series was focused on “foreign” [Roma], and he went to Hungary, to the “winter camp” of Hungarian [Roma] in the town of Satoralijaujhely. He remained with them there, reporting also from Bucharest, until April, when they set out on their spring and summer travels throughout Romania. Zappa styled the articles as a pseudo‐anthropological study of the secrets of foreign [Roma], and the articles are usually themed around a single aspect of “[Roma] life.”

His account clearly racializes the [Roma], calling them an “unchanged race” (Zappa 1937c) asserting that as “primitives, in a super‐civilized world, the [Roma] cannot resist the call of their race”. He asserts that one “hears the call of the race, always present because it circulates in them with their blood, always insistent because it beats so closely with their heart” (Zappa 1937b).

Zappa gives the readers details of their “fear of water: they never wash themselves,” and informs the readers that “theft along with begging represents for the [Roma] the most common industry and the most honorable profession” (Zappa 1937f). Mixed with his own ethnographic study, he cites secondary sources to tell the history and origins of the [Roma].

He even has an “adventure” with a [Romani], [à la] Carmen, to satisfy his readers: after unbuttoning her blouse, he tells us, “And, so, I would have fallen into temptation, if a powerful interruption did not save me from the edge of the abyss”. The bar owner warned him that the [Romani] woman was running an extortion scam with her husband waiting outside (Zappa 1937a).

Zappa’s articles embraced every stereotype that had been circulating about [Roma and Sinti] in [the Kingdom of] Italy, including child stealing, musical talent, their lack of religion, and their social organization equal to that of “primitive man” (Zappa 1937d).

In a piece on [Romani] origins, he discusses the relationship between Jews and [Roma]. Quoting Wagenseil, the 17th century anti‐Semite, he tries to disprove the theory that [Roma] are cousins of the Jews. He points out that while Jews accept society, so that they can come to control it, the [Roma] reject social organization altogether.

Unlike Jews who “pretend to have received their law from God,” [Roma] have “no doctrine, no faith, no religion”. He argues that their complete opposition to one another makes Wagenseil’s assertion impossible, and concludes by arguing that the [Roma] “have never, in fact, changed” (Zappa 1937e).

See also: The Third Reich inherited anti-Roma policies from the Weimar Republic & the Second Reich