http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2007/11/23/2003389179<snip>
A demand by Italy's former royal family for compensation from the Italian state for their 56 years of forced exile was met with deep scorn on Wednesday by anti-Fascist and Jewish groups.
"We are astonished by the absurdity of this demand," said Massimo Rendina, head of Italy's largest anti-fascist association ANPI.
"The royal family benefited financially from the Fascist regime. Remember the harm Victor Emmanuel III did by signing laws against civil liberties to fight opponents of the regime, causing them moral and financial harm," Rendina said.
"There were also racial laws
. Without the king's signature, those laws could not have existed," he said.
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http://africa.reuters.com/odd/news/usnL20502340.html
<snip>
One official at Prodi's office was quoted as telling Italian state television that Italy may now turn around and seek damages from the Savoy royals over historic grievances.
Italians voted to abolish the monarchy after World War Two, punishing the family for first collaborating with fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and then fleeing Rome in 1944 to avoid an invading German army.
"It's truly nonsense," said lawmaker Renzo Lusetti of the family's request, adding he believed the statute of limitations on that grievance had surely run out.
Communist lawmaker Pino Sgobio called it a "a sign of moral, civil and social decadence".
Giulio Andreotti, an 88-year-old former prime minister who has been serving in parliament since 1946, seemed to quote from memory that Italy only seized the Savoy assets belonging to the former king. That was a fifth of the assets of Umberto II's father, he told Italian media.
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Thank Georgie the enabler.
Gr. Add lonk.