fascism

Question 1

1) What were the sports infrastructures built during Fascism?

Answer 1

They built new and modern football stadiums as symbols of Fascist power like the Giovanni Berta stadium in Florence also the stadiums of Bologna, Turin and Rome

Question 2

2) Why was the Fascist policy so generous to sport?

Answer 2

Physical education would grow up real Fascists and real Patriots and remind the next generations that Fascist era sometimes existed.

Question 3

3) What was the Fascist style of architecture like?

Answer 3

They were influenced by Roman architecture (to project the glorious historical past of the Italian race) so they constructed sports stadiums that seemed like the Roman amphitheaters.

Question 4

1) How were the young considered during Fascism?

Answer 4

The future of the nation.

Question 5

2) How did Fascism control the private life of the citizens?

Answer 5

Using sporting activities

Question 6

3) How did the Fascist ideology spread ?

Answer 6

using sport activities.
There were 3 phases.
(1920s) sports were considered as a physical activity.
(early 1930s) sport was used as political propaganda
(late 1930s) sport activities were militarized.

Question 7

4) What were the main successes in sport?

Answer 7

In the 2nd phase:
– (during the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932) 12 Gold medals, coming second after the United States of America.
– 2 World Cups
– the Central European Cup
– Tour de France
– Primo Carnera, prevailed as the world heavyweight title in boxing in the summer of 1933

Question 8

5) What were the aims of the various sports celebrations?

Answer 8

to commemorate the successes
to entertain,
To distract the general public
to psychologically combat their foes,
To maintain a unified and harmonious image on the surface.

Question 9

6) What were the main points showing the transition from sport to military skills?

Answer 9

The notion of uniforms,
strict rules,
obedience to hierarchy,
and teamwork
There was an organization called ENEF

Question 10

7) Why was Fascism so interested in children?

Answer 10

Children were easy targets because they are malleable and childhood was an easy and natural time to develop, absorb and assimilate.

Question 11

8) Who was the Minister in that period?

Answer 11

Giovanni Gentile

Question 12

9) What did he do?

Answer 12

ENEF (Ente Nazionale per l’Educazione Fisica-National Physical Education Board) (not successful)

Question 13

10) What was the aim of ONB ?

Answer 13

ONB (Opera Nazionale Balilla) got the new generation of the Italian youth in shape, enrolling young male from six to eighteen.

Question 14

11) Was CONI a non-political Committee?

Answer 14

No, had been at the service of the PNF (Partito Nazionale Fascista) since 1926.

Question 15

12) What was Mussolini and Gentile’s strategy?

Answer 15

Every single phase of one’s life cycle were carefully categorized and allocated a specific political organization in which to dictate and teach the fascist political ideology.

Question 16

1) At which age did Bartali become a professional racer and what race did he win?

Answer 16

17 winning the Giro d’Italia.

Question 17

2) What was Bartali’s nickname? Why?

Answer 17

Giant of the Mountains because his training regimen in the hilly Italian countryside

Question 18

3) What did the Italian Cycling Federation want Bartali to do?

Answer 18

Tries to use Bartali to prove the superiority of the “Italian race”, forced him to dedicate his victory to Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. He refused.

Question 19

4) What are the main races Bartali won?

Answer 19

Giro d’Italia,
one of the three Grand Tour bike races in 1936 and again in 1937
In 1938 the Tour de France

Question 20

5) What did Bartali do to help the Jews?

Answer 20

By then, Bartali owned an apartment in Florence, and at great risk to both himself and his family, he lent it to a Jewish family to hide in. Throughout the war, Bartali helped support them.

Question 21

6) What did Bartali answer his son when his son asked him why he couldn’t tell anyone what he did?

Answer 21

‘You must do good, but you must not talk about it. If you talk about it you’re taking advantage of others’ misfortunes for your own gain.’”
When people were telling him, ‘Gino, you’re a hero’, he would reply: ‘No, no - I want to be remembered for my sporting achievements. Real heroes are others, those who have suffered in their soul, in their heart, in their spirit, in their mind, for their loved ones. Those are the real heroes. I’m just a cyclist.’”

Question 22

7) What did Rabbi Cassuto and Cardinal Della Costa do?

Answer 22

They recruited and coordinated rescue efforts involving hundreds of Italians and saved the lives of thousands of local Jews, as well as Jewish refugees living in and around Florence. Cardinal Dalla Costa helped recruit rescuers, wrote to the heads of monasteries and convents in his territory, begging them to shelter Jews, and even hid Jews himself in his cardinal palace.

Question 23

8) Why did Bartali know Cardinal Dalla Costa?

Answer 23

Cardinal Dalla Costa had married Bartali’s parents
he approached Bartali with a top-secret request: Bartali agreed and was soon working as a courier, ferrying forged documents around the Italian countryside hidden in secret compartments in his bicycle’s frame and handlebars.

Question 24

9) When did Bartali’s rescue activities come to light?

Answer 24

after his death in 2000.

Question 25

10) What recognition did Bartali receive?

Answer 25

In 2013, Yad Vashem recognized Gino Bartali as Righteous Among the Nations.

Question 26

1) What was the social policy of Fascism in relatation to the women’s role?

Answer 26

The task of young girls was to get married and have children, Mussolini perceived women’s primary role as primarily child bearers and men, warriors—once saying: “War is to man what maternity is to the woman”.[233]
Italian Fascism called for women to be honoured as “reproducers of the nation” and the Italian Fascist government held ritual ceremonies to honour women’s role within the Italian nation.[235] In 1934, Mussolini declared that employment of women was a “major aspect of the thorny problem of unemployment” and that for women, working was “incompatible with childbearing”. Mussolini went on to say that the solution to unemployment for men was the “exodus of women from the work force

Question 27

2) What was the position of Fascism related to sexuality?

Answer 27

Fascist Italy promoted what it considered normal sexual behaviour in youth while denouncing what it considered deviant sexual behaviour.[232] It condemned pornography, most forms of birth control and contraceptive devices (with the exception of the condom), homosexuality and prostitution as deviant sexual behaviour, although enforcement of laws opposed to such practices was erratic and authorities often turned a blind eye.[232] Fascist Italy regarded the promotion of male sexual excitation before puberty as the cause of criminality amongst male youth, declared homosexuality a social disease and pursued an aggressive campaign to reduce prostitution of young women.[232]