Students of Italian schools have chosen Nazi leader Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf as their favourite book in a nationwide survey. The students were asked by the Italian Ministry of Education about their favourite books to promote reading.
Selection of Mein Kampf, which translates to My Struggle, in favourites was dubbed a "pretty nasty case" by a ministry member. The book is a manifesto written by Hitler about his ideologies regarding ethnic cleansing. He was responsible for the death of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.
He said that the book was not eligible for the survey as only Italian books published after 2000 were part of the survey.
Fusacchia is convinced it was an attempt to spoil the ballot, and that children legitimately chose the book as their favourite.
"We are looking into it, but we are convinced that it was not a bad interpretation of the request, but rather a free choice," he said.
He told The Local: 'We are looking into it, but we are convinced that it was not a bad interpretation of the request, but rather a free choice.' He also said that teachers and not students were responsible for submitting final responses.
Top three books chosen were Bianca come il latte, rossa come il sangue (White As Milk, Red as Blood) by Alessandro D'Avenia, Io Non Ho Paura (I'm Not Scared) by Niccolò Ammaniti, and Gomorra by Roberto Saviano.
The book penned by Hitler was chosen in Palermo, Catanzaro (Calabria), Potenza (Basilicata), Tivoli and Gaeta in Lazio, Trieste, Udine (Fruili-Venezia Giulia), and Piacenza (Emilia Romagna).
While secondary school students chose between Italian titles, primary school students chose international classics such as The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.
As many as 3.5 million students from 138,000 different schools took part in the six-month long survey.
