Located 60 kilometers (37 miles) northwest of Messina, Lipari is the largest of the Aeolian Islands. The General Directorate of Public Security (Direzione generale della pubblica sicurezza, Dgps) opened the facility in November 1926 to confine political opponents and common criminals who had previously been taken into preventive custody only in exceptional cases. Ever since the establishment of Liberal Italy, such measures had been used solely for “asocials.” Under the Mussolini regime, the island served mainly to confine political opponents. In October 1941 the facility was turned into a concentration camp for civilians (campo di concentramento per civili). The major difference between the original facility and the subsequently established confinement site was the lack of disciplinary sanctions for regime opponents in the former. Although Mussolini initially decided that detainees of all categories would live together, a ministerial note of February 1927 laid the groundwork for the...