Office of the Historian

865.4016/77: Telegram

The Ambassador in Italy (Phillips) to the Secretary of State

Rome, October 7, 1938—noon.
[Received October 7—8:35 a.m.]

289. Following is summary of resolutions on the racial question adopted by Fascist Grand Council last night.

1.
Mixed marriages, (a) Italians may not marry individuals of the Hamitic, Semitic or other non-Aryan races; (b) Government and public employees, civil and military, may not marry foreign women; (c) permission from the Ministry of the Interior must be obtained for the marriage of Italians, male or female, even with Aryan foreigners; (d) penalties against persons lowering the prestige of the race in the Empire will be made more severe.
2.
Expulsion of foreign Jews. Apart from individual controversial cases to be determined by a commission of the Ministry of the Interior, foreign Jews who are more than 65 years of age or who have married an Italian subject prior to October 1, 1938 shall not be expelled.
3.
Determination of Jews. The following are considered to be Jews: (a) persons both of whose parents were Jews, (b) persons of Jewish fathers and foreign mothers; (c) persons born of mixed marriages who profess the Jewish religion but not those who as of October 1, 1938 profess another religion.
4.
Exemption from discrimination. Except as regards teachers no discrimination on the grounds of race will be made against Jews belonging to the families of: (a) men who died, who served as volunteers or who received military decoration in the Libyan, World, Ethiopian or Spanish wars; (b) men who were killed or wounded in the Fascist revolution or who enrolled in the Party in the years from 1919 to 1922 or during the second semester of 1924 or were members of the Fiume Legions; (c) persons having unusual merits, to be verified by a special commission.
5.
Status of other Italian Jews. Pending further legislation regarding acquisition of Italian citizenship Jews not included in (4) may not (a) be members of the Facist Party, (b) own or manage firms employing 100 or more persons, (c) own more than 50 hectares of land, (d) perform military service in time of peace or war.
Professional activities will be governed by subsequent measures.
6.
General provisions. (a) Jews dismissed from public positions shall be entitled to the usual pension rights, (b) any form of pressure upon the Jews to cause them to recant shall be severely repressed, (c) no change shall be made as regards freedom of worship and the activity of the Jewish communities under existing legislation, (d) the institution of secondary schools for Jews as well as of elementary schools shall be permitted.
7.
Jewish immigration in Ethiopia. It may be decided to permit “controlled immigration” of European Jews into certain districts of Ethiopia in order among other things to divert Jewish immigration away from Palestine. This possibility as well as the other conditions which were to be established for the Jews will depend upon the attitude of Jewry in general toward Fascist Italy. (In this connection the Grand Council declared that international Jewry had been unanimously hostile to Fascism.)

Copy and translation of full text of communiqué by today’s pouch.37

Phillips
  1. Not printed.↩