The Economic Persecution of Jews in the Press of Nazi-Occupied Europe. Le Matin de Paris and Il Piccolo di Trieste: Two Editorial Policies Compared (1940-1945)

This paper examines, with comparative perspective, the strategies that the press of Nazi-occupied Europe used to deal with anti-Jewish persecution. The analysis focuses on the articles devoted to the spoilation of Jewish property edited by Il Piccolo di Trieste and Le Matin de Paris, two newspapers published under the close control of the German occupier respectively in the major cities of the Adriatisches Küstenland (1943-1945) and Occupied France (1940-1944). In particular, the surprising differences of such analysis will be questioned. In fact, on the one hand, the publications of Il Piccolo were completely silent about the economic persecution of the Jews in Trieste, although it was particularly violent; while on the other hand Le Matin used the economic redistribution of Jewish seized property as a propagandistic tool to show the benefits of the anti-Jewish policies. The reasons for this fundamental difference will be researched with the methodology of comparative history, questioning both the different socio-political context of the two cities and the politics of the occupier, which were very different in the two areas of occupation.