Property suffered a thorough upheaval during the war, not only in Arezzo, but nearly everywhere in Italy where bombs had fallen, where refugees and evacuees sheltered, where the front passed and the ...Allies occupied. The damage, ruin, or occupation of so much property heightened the sense of proprietorship as the exigencies of war challenged traditional notions of property and the rights to its possession and use. Within just a few years, even with a continuing housing crisis, and as sharecroppers struggled to increase their share of ownership, ideas about property settled down almost where they had been before the war.
Rebuilding the Commune VICTORIA C. BELCO
War, Massacre, and Recovery in Central Italy, 1943-1948,
05/2010
Book Chapter
Arezzo’sQuestoreand ACC Provincial Commissioner Quin Smith – whose daily work in somewhat different ways included maintaining public order, monitoring the province’s political situation, and keeping ...their thumbs on the pulse of the citizenry’s mood – both repeatedly commented on the population’s mistrust of the state and the popular conviction that the ‘authorities,’ whether in Rome or the provincial capital, were not capable of solving Italy’s postwar problems.¹ In July 1945, theQuestorereported to the prefect: ‘The public mood is quite depressed, mostly about three matters: the high cost of living, the problem of housing, and unemployment. The population is
Pure Politics VICTORIA C. BELCO
War, Massacre, and Recovery in Central Italy, 1943-1948,
05/2010
Book Chapter
The prefect and theQuestoreusually commenced their monthly reports to higher state officials with a section on the province’s ‘Political Situation.’ In a place that, by other evidence, teemed with ...political activity and with other activity that brought in party politics somehow (note for example the party flags flying over the celebratory lunch at the Bucine viaduct) (figures 11 and 12), the prefect andQuestorenoted that ‘the people’ and ‘the population’ took little interest in politics or in the activities of the various political parties.¹ Early on, both men tied this indifference to the suffering and hardships Aretine
