"Documentary photography" in Fascist Italy

Interesting afternoon, taking zillions of pictures of a camera-shy-friend who needed a portrait for his editor but could not stop making funny, wrinkly faces… We also discussed the object of its most recent study: the history of an infamous journal published in Fascist Italy, “La difesa della razza” (The defence of the race). We looked the use of “documentary pictures” in it.

He showed me pictures of Jews at (forced) work which were used as proof in articles discussing how Jews would only work if forced. In another issue the picture of a line of black factory workers at a medical visit was misquoted as the picture of a line of an army visit in France. The point of the article was to demonstrate that the (enemy) French army was corrupted by the presence of so many blacks. It was then pointed out to the editor that the picture did not represented soldiers but factory workers. The answer, published in a successive issue, was that this was irrelevant: as the picture could indeed illustrate a true fact, its use was perfectly acceptable. This journal makes a very depressing reading after a while, but it made me willing to learn a little bit more about the use of photography in the two decades of Fascism in Italy.