The order marked the final change of attitude of Fascist Italy towards the Jewish minority in the country, having gone from allowing active participation in the Fascist movement to the, official, start of discrimination with the Italian Racial Laws of 1938, to declaring them as of "enemy nationality" at the Congress of Verona in early November 1943 and, ultimately, to arrest and deportation to extermination camps with the Police Order No.
In the territories occupied by the Italian Army in Greece, France and Yugoslavia after the outbreak of World War II Jews even found protection from persecution.
[2][3] On 25 July 1943, with the fall of the Fascist Regime, the situation in Italy temporarily changed, with inmates in internment camps gradually released, including Jewish prisoners.
[6][7] The order was issued by phone by Guido Buffarini Guidi, Minister of the Interior of the Italian Social Republic on the evening of 30 November 1943 and confirmed the following day through telegram.
In case of the Raid of the Ghetto of Rome on 16 October 1943, when over 1,000 Jews were arrested to be deported and killed at Auschwitz, the Roman police had not participated and had not been asked to as the Germans considered them to be to unreliable.
[13] Guido Buffarini Guidi amended his order ten days later, on 10 December, to now exclude Jews over the age of 70 or gravely ill from arrest.