Miss Italia in row over war remark

The newly-crowned Miss Italy has been ridiculed for telling the contest judges that she would have liked to have lived through the Second World War.

Alice Sabatani was asked what historical period she would have liked to have experienced during the live television contest.

The 18-year-old drew gasps when she told them that she wished she was alive in 1942, during the height of World War II and the reign of Italy’s dictator, Mussolini.

Explaining her answer, Miss Sabatini said: “Well… to see really what the Second World War was like, since the books talk about it for page after page.

"I want to live it. In any case I am a woman so I wouldn’t have had to do military service, so I would have been at home with the fear of…”

She began to laugh before finishing her sentence, but not before those watching laughed themselves and blasted her for her odd choice.

Italy was an ally of Germany in 1942 and Nazis began executing thousands of Jewish prisoners at concentration camps around this time.

Thousands of Italian lives were also lost during the Battle of El Alamein and the Battle of Stalingrad.

She later defended her answer, saying she was “nervous”.