Facing the unknown crimes of older generations: Emotional and cognitive reactions of young Italian students reading an historical text on the colonial invasion of Ethiopia
When victims are weak and isolated, social denial of crimes committed against them is a banal and often long-lasting phenomenon. Nevertheless, reactions to the breaking of denial on past wrongdoings is a scarcely studied issue. This experimental study explores reactions of forty-two Italian university students, when exposed to historical information on colonial crimes committed by the Italian Army against Ethiopians. Before the experimental task, participants proved to be ignorant of these historical facts, up until now literaly denied in the Italian social discourse.