This is specific to the situation in (the Grand-Duchy of) Luxembourg.
Historian Michel Pauly alludes that after the war, a lot of Luxembourgers made the assimilation of Italian = Fascist, including at least two ministers who used this “justification” to seize all Italian property. Historian Maria Caldognetto notes the 1946 report of the Italian Legate to Luxembourg where he informed Rome of the tense situation in Luxembourg and the countless sequestrations of property among fascists and non-fascists alike. The sequestration even hit those who had their property previously seized by the fascists in Italy or who had actively fought and resisted during the war. This is the case for Luigi Peruzzi, who had his property confiscated.
Peruzzi was an anti-fascist who was deeply involved in actions against the fascist community in Luxembourg during the 1930s. The Luxembourgish government at the time repeatedly expulsed anti-fascists and was heavily criticized by the anti-fascists for doing Mussolini’s bidding. In May 1940, during the evacuation of Luxembourg following the German Invasion, Peruzzi fled with his family to France. There he encountered anti-Italian sentiment because the French assumed he was fascist.
After the French capitulation he returned to Luxembourg and resumed his resistance, now also against the Nazis. In 1942 he and many others were caught by the Germans and held in Prison before being moved to the SS-Sonderlager Hinzert in September of 1942. Upon arrival, the inmates were highly suspicious of him and his Italian colleagues. They too believed he was a fascist spy. It took quite some time (and a lot of torture by the Germans) to finally convince the inmates that Peruzzi was safe and on their side.
Sidenote: Peruzzi’s story during the war continues to be fascinating: After Hinzert, he’s moved to Italy and held under house-arrest, then joins the Free Italian Forces, gets captured by the Germans again and forcefully deported to Berlin to work in a factory there.
The anti-Italian sentiment was also present among resistance fighters, including those who had known of anti-fascist Italians among their ranks. As such, in 1952 Raymond Steichen (a co-inmate who was part of the same prisoner-convoy as Peruzzi from Luxembourg to Hinzert) co-published the “Livre d’Or de la Résistance” (a collection of all the names of the victims of the Nazi terror among resistance fighters). Neither Peruzzi nor his other Italian colleagues are mentioned.
Even worse, historian Denis Scuto notes that in the 1996 published book “Livre d’Or des Prisons” (list of names of those imprisoned based on the incomplete prison register), the author (and resistance fighter) Aloyse Raths purposefully leaves out Peruzzi as ever having been imprisoned. For the convoy of the 14th of September 1942, Raths stops at Prisoner N°36. Guess who prisoner N°37 was, none other than Luigi Peruzzi. As such Italian antifascist resistance was still (purposefully) being ignored as late as the early 2000s.
Now what about the rest of the Italians? Historian Vincent Artuso notes that after the war there was a massive need for foreign workers to rebuild the country and fulfil the economic needs. The government was hesitant to ask for Italian workers because they considered them as enemies. However, the government had little choice. They couldn’t request German workers as the French were hoarding them and the “displaced persons” couldn’t be used because they had nowhere to go to once the government no longer needed them.
So, the economic need and the restrictions forced the government in September of 1946 to pursue Italian workers, but only those that were specifically noted for their anti-fascist attitude. In 1948 both governments signed a deal. By 1949 relations had normalized to the point that anti-Italian sentiment was no longer as present as before. Anti-Italian sentiment was present after the war and hit the Italian community hard, but the economic needs of the country offered no other choice than to normalize relations again in order to profit of the manpower. This didn't stop the memory of anti-fascist resistance to be "forgotten" by the historiography.
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