Italian anti-fascists in London between the thirties and the forties

Between the second half of the Thirties and the Forties, various Italian anti-fascists living in London show their particular and varied opposition to Fascism. There are three main turning points for the anti-fascist movement in London: in 1935-1936 with the Italo-Ethiopian War first and the Spanish Civil War after; in 1940 with the Italian Declaration of War against Great Britain and France, when anti-fascists must fight to show they are different to those that the British authorities define generically with the name of “enemies”. Several newspapers and leaflets are published among the Italian Community in this period, first of all «New Times and Ethiopia News», thanks to Sylvia Pankhurst and Silvio Corio. The newspaper is dedicated to the defence of the Ethiopian cause with the contribution of important personalities from the political and academic fields, such as R. C. Hawkin, Secretary of the International Arbitration League, or F. S. Livie- Noble, Secretary of the African Affairs Group in London. Moreover, another important aim is to fight Fascism in general, because the fascist victims are not only in the Abyssinia cemeteries or in Libya, in concentration camps, but also in Italy itself where an entire nation is under fascist control. After the 10th June 1940 the situation of Italian Community changes, with the internment decided by Churchill and the terrible death of 446 Italians aboard Arandora Star. In a Great Britain engaged in an important fight against Nazi-Fascism, thus, the experience of men such as the Catholic Carlo Petrone, socialist Alessandro Magri and Paolo Treves, freemason Francesco Galasso or Giuseppe Gatti seek to emerge, among the terrible events taking place in Europe.