Il Duce and His Women by Roberto Olla

Author:Roberto Olla [Olla, Roberto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781846882029
Publisher: Alma Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The reality was very different. The squads who had got used to overrunning towns and rural areas more or less with impunity, since the police forces rarely intervened, now saw Mussolini’s takeover of power as the signal to unleash a final reckoning. The thugs thought they’d been given the right to break into the homes of their political opponents – university professors, intellectuals, journalists and trade-union activists – where they would beat up and force their victims, as a minimum punishment, to drink a glass or a whole jug of castor oil, as, so it was thought, a purgative for the turpitude of their anti-Fascist ideas. Administering the oil was nothing less than a form of torture; castor oil is a powerful laxative, no longer used today precisely because its effects are so drastic. It also makes people vomit. The victims were not allowed to empty their bowels normally, but frequently had their trousers tied so they couldn’t take them off. When they returned home – if they returned home – they would arrive in front of their family in a pitiful and humiliating state.

Just as man, according to the Catholic Church, is redeemed from original sin by holy water, so the anti-Fascist, according to the Fascist religion, is washed from the crime of anti-Fascism – harming his own country – by being administered castor oil. If the neophyte was responsive to the initial reprimands and drank the oil without resistance, the ceremony was soon over. If there was a show of resistance, the procedure was more complex. Because of this, many anti-Fascists were killed, since the man who resists redemption is more useful dead than alive to the faith and to the country. In the Romagna region there are many such martyrs. But in most cases such extreme measures were avoided. The rebel was rendered powerless and then his mouth was opened, often by using a special device which had been invented and patented by veteran members of the squads. The Florentine squad was celebrated, among other achievements, also for this invention. In the case of persistent recalcitrance, a tube was used, as in hospitals. The dose of castor oil was carefully measured out in proportion to the degree of the heretic’s obstinacy and the extent of his heresy. In complex cases, paraffin or petrol, and on occasion iodine tincture, was added to the castor oil.29

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