Unluckly the ghettos are by far more ancient than German WWII occupation. The word comes from the name of the place where jews were required to live in 16th century Venice. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto
Anyhow this wall is a perfect example of the behaviour of our (I'm italian) center-left administration, expecially at the local level. In italy there's this strange thing: upper class and poors both vote Berlusconi's center-right coalition (for different reasons) and the main center-left electors pool is in the wealthy educated middle-class, which is the more interested into keeping immigrants away from their homes and lives. Our politician really acts doing the 'good' of their electoral base (and their own too, of course), it's the electoral base which doesn't have anymore a political coscience.
The state of the left in italy is really dramatic.