When people think of Axis Atrocities, many will instantly think of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany's genocide against the Jews in Europe. Others will recall the horrible atrocities which the Japanese committed in East Asia before and during World War 2, such as the Rape of Nanking, Comfort Women, and many other crimes. Little attention is given to the crimes and atrocities of the third Axis power, Italy. This leads many to believe that Fascist Italy's only crime was allying with Hitler.
But did you know that Fascist Italy initiated a genocide against Libya? Did you know that this genocide murdered almost half of the population of Cyrenaica? Likely not.
This article is about the genocide which Fascist generals Rodolfo Graziani and Pietro Badoglio waged against the Libyan population during the "Pacification" of Libya.
Background - The Second Italo-Senussi War
In 1922, leader of the National Fascist Party, Benito Mussolini, rose to power as the unopposed dictator of Italy. Mussolini had an envisionment of a grand fascist Roman Empire, and sought to consolidate aswell as expand the Italian Empire.
The Italians had very little control over their colony in Libya when the Fascists came to power. The Senussis, a Muslim political-religious group in Libya, controlled most of the colony. The Italians had fought against Senussi rebels in the past but many of their efforts to gain control over Libya ended in failure.
But in 1923, Mussolini came to power, he initiated a campaign to gain full control over Libya once and for all in accordance with Fascist foreign policy.
At first, Mussolini's campaign was successful. By 1926, Italian forces under Governor-General Emilio De Bono had seized Tripolitania. But in the late 1920s, the Italian war effort in Libya became extremely difficult.
Senussi forces under the command of Omar Mukhtar, the Lion of the Desert, still controlled Cyrenaica. Mukhtar and his men utilized Guerilla warfare. They were able to attack Italian positions and then quickly dissapear due to good knowledge of the terrain. The Italians struggled to suppress the Senussi revolt due to their utilization of Guerrila warfare.
Omar al-Mukhtar
The Governor of Cyrenaica, Attilio Tenuzzi, had a plan. He wanted to use the superior Italian weapons like tanks and aircraft to combat the Senussis. Although some of these measures were somewhat successful, by 1929, the Italian Minister of Colonies, Emilio De Bono, wanted to use more drastic measures to finally "pacify" Libya.
In March 1930, General Rodolfo Graziani became Vice Governor of Cyrenaica.
And that meant Genocide.
Begginning of the Genocide - Mass Deportations
Rodolfo Graziani was a dedicated Fascist and Italian general. He is most known for his disastrous attempted Invasion of Egypt in 1940, where his forces were crushed by the British Army during Operation Compass.
Most historians agree that the mass deportation of Libyans began in Spring 1930. The Italians had been deporting some Libyans as early as a year before Graziani was proclaimed Vice-Governor of Italian Cyrenaica.
But in Spring 1930, Graziani began the mass deportation of Libyans in Cyrenaica.
In June 1930, Badoglio issued an order for the deportation of semi-nomadic and nomadic tribespeople in Cyrenaica to concentration camps. These people made up possibly over half of Cyrenaica's entire population.
Libyans were taken by Italian forces in brutal death marches to the camps. Italian and Libyan sources both confirm that many of the people who were taken to the camps did not even arrive at the camps. Graziani recorded that, out of the 130,000 Libyans who were supposed to arrive at internment camps, only 80,000 even made it.
Survivors of the Mersa Brega Concentration camp state that Italian soldiers used whips and guns to make sure the Libyans were moving at a satisfactory pace during the death march, and anyone who went too slow or passed out due to exhaustion were shot dead.
The Concentration Camps
The Concentration Camps were organized into a grid system by the Italian officials. Individual families were assigned to tents in each grid.
Soldiers in the camps issued very harsh punishments. Victims in the camps could be beaten, insulted, whipped, or even hanged for different crimes. Victims who insulted Italy as a country were given very harsh punishments. A man at Agaila concentration camp refused to salute the commander and refused to say "Long Live the King of Italy" and he was whipped 800 times.
Photo of El Abiar Concentration Camp. About 8,000 Libyans were sent to this camp.
Forced Labor
The Italians obviously used forced labor in the concentration camps. But the methods in which the Italians used forced labor differentiated by camp.
At el-Agheila Concentration Camp, inmates were forced to do work in mines, and build railways and roads.
At Mersa Brega Concentration Camp, inmates were forced to work from 7 to 12, recieving almost nothing in return.
At Agedabia Concentration Camp, inmates were forced to work on railways and other building projects in the town of Agedabia, recieving almost nothing in return.
At Sidi Ahmed el-Magrun Concentration Camp, inmates were forced to do road and construction works for 5 hours, recieving almost nothing in return.
At el-Abiar Concentration Camp, inmates were forced to help with the construction of a road in Benghazi.
Inmates at the Soluch Concentration Camp
Punishments and Torture
Punishments in Camps were very harsh. Inmates were commonly executed and sometimes even tortured.
As we stated before, inmates could find themselves beaten, whipped, and hanged for disobeying camp orders.
Different forms of torture include, but are likely not limited to:
-Standing in the sun with stretched arms raised with large stones or tied to a pole
-Getting Flogged
-Imprisonment to sand pits for up to 4 days
-Being hung from the wrist or foot to beams
-Being buried in the sand with only their head out
-Getting their hand cut off
-Getting their feet and tongue cut off
-Being killed
Furthermore, at el-Agheila, prisoners were subject to especially cruel torture.
Torture methods at el-Agheila Concentration Camp included:
-Burning of the feet by use of hot irons
-Putting insects inside of body cavities
-Cutting off the nails and destroying them
-Suspension from hair beams with weights on the ankles
-Forcing inmates to drink large amounts of salt water
Punishments would happen in front of everyone at the center of the camps after all inmates returned from work.
Food Rations
At the camps, the daily food consisted of pasta or rice with sauce, bread, two cups of tea or barley with sugar, an onion, and two liters of water, along with meat twice a week.
Breakfast was provided at 6 am, lunch at 12 pm, and dinner at 8 pm.
Inmates could have food and water taken away or less rationed as a punishment.
Rape and Sexual abuse
Rape and forced prostitution were common punishments at all the camps.
At el-Agheila, a brothel existed in a hut where Italian soldiers could rape female prisoners.
"Re-education institutes for Minors"
During the Libyan Genocide, the Italians constructed 4 internment camps for minors; Mersa Brega, Agedabia, Sidi Ahmed el Magrun, and Soluch.
600 young Libyans were interned at Mersa Brega. All of them were boys.
190 young Libyans, boys and girls, were interned at Agedabia. The youngest kids at Agedabia Re-education Camp were just six years old.
230 young Libyans were interned at Sidi Ahmed el-Magrun. 30 of them were girls.
560 young Libyans were interned at Soluch. 60 of them were girls.
The kids from these camps came from families who were at the aforementioned concentration camps. The inmates would first attend classes in the morning, and then were permitted to take a 30-minute break. At 9:30 PM, a curfew would go into effect. The inmates could engage in activities such as sports and dancing at the camp.
However, some of the punishments at these camps were still incredibly brutal. Some punishments, like not allowing inmates to play sports or forcing them to stay alone in their room, are more light, but others were essentially torture. These included:
-Deprivation of food and water
-Imprisonment in "punishment chambers" with little to no nutrition or water
-Getting whipped
-Being forced to sit in boiling or extremely cold water
-Having to stand in the sun carrying stones or having arms stretched
-Getting feet or hands binded together
-Being forced to take drugs which can make you vomit
End of the Genocide
The genocide ended when Libya was fully pacified in 1933. Omar al-Mukhtar had been captured and executed in Soluch concentration camp in 1931. As such, there was no reason to continue the persecution. By the end of 1933, the genocide was over, and all the camps were shut down, and either unoccupied or transformed into different facilities.
About 60,000-70,000 people died in the Libyan genocide.. Cyrenaica's population had plummeted.
Was it really a "genocide"?
The Libyan Genocide was, in fact, not just a series of mass murder, but a genocide.
Raphael Lemkin, the man who created the term "Genocide", defines it as:
"[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
a. Killing members of the group;
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
The Italians had mass murdered the Libyan Bedouin population with intent to destroy them, as evidenced by Badoglio's order for the deportation of the population of Cyrenaica which was shown before.
Christopher Mingo explains this in even more detail in "Hidden in Plain Sight:
Italian Concentration Camps in Cyrenaica: 1930-1933".
Sources:
https://history.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/04/Mingo-Senior-Thesis-Final-Draft_REDUCED.pdf
https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=106
https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=104
https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=105
https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=196
https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=103
https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=209
https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=208
https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=210
https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=207
https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-11/raphael-lemkin-and-genocide-convention
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