Primo Levi later describes the terrors of the
long sleepless nights at Camp Fossoli in a poem (translated to English by Franco
G. Aitala):
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Il tramonto di Fossoli
Io so cosa vuol dire
non tornare.
A traverso il
filo spinato
ho visto il sole scendere e morire;
ho sentito lacerarmi la carne
le parole del vecchio poeta:
"Possono i soli cadere e tornare:
a noi, quando la breve luce è spenta,
una notte infinita è da dormire." |
The sunset at Fossoli
I know what
it means not to return.
Through the
barbed wire
I saw the sun descend and die,
I felt tearing my flesh
the words of the old poet:
"The suns can fall and return:
for us, when the brief light is out,
there is an infinite night to be slept." |
Of
the 835 Jews that were deported from Fossoli to Auschwitz on April 5, 1944, 692
were gassed on arrival. Among the victims were 71-year-old Sara Klein and
5-year-old Rosetta Scaramella.
By the beginning of August, the camp had been
almost completely cleared and the remaining deportees transferred to
Bolzano, where Haage and Titho, the SS Commanders were also
transferred. August 2, 1944 is the official date the camp was abandoned - a camp
that had been used as a transfer point for approximately 5,000 deportees, one
half of which were Jewish.
The German SS committed a number of horrendous
crimes at Fossoli, the most serious of which was the execution by firing squad
of 68 deportees (https://www.deportati.it/campi/fossoli/fucilati.htm, and
anti-fascists) on 12th July (see a testimony by Alba Valech
Capozzi (https://www.deportati.it/campi/fossoli/valech70_1.htm), who was present
at Fossoli in the days of the massacre). Ten days later, (22nd
July), the partisan Resistance hero and leading figure of the ‘Party of Action’
Leopoldo Gasparotto, was slaughtered.
After
the war, the ex-concentration camp was converted to housing facilities. From
1947 to 1952 it was occupied by the Catholic community of Nomadelfia, and from
1953 until the end of the 1960s it was a refugee camp for Julians and Dalmatians
and called "Villaggio San Marco".
The new inhabitants intentionally gave the camp a
totally different appearance. They sought to give that place of death a new face
by heavily modifying the existing structures and tearing down the dramatic
indications of what had been its most tragic use. Therefore, it is believed that
only the stonework of the barracks and the position of the surviving structures
are original. Some of the camp’s buildings, although in appalling conditions,
still exist today. In 1973, a museum was
inaugurated in the Castle of Pio in Carpi as a memorial to the political and
racial deportees of the Nazi extermination camps ("Museo monumento al deportato
politico e razziale nei campi di sterminio nazisti"). Questo convinced the
Municipality to request the Taxation Police Office to purchase the area of the
form Camp Fossili which was then awarded "at no charge" in 1984, thanks to a
special law. The Municipality of Carpi assumed the difficult task related to the
methodology of the camp's reconstruction.
An international competition among European and Israeli architects allowed a
wide and diversified contribution of ideas. The Italian architect Roberto
Maestro submitted the successful proposal that was selected.
The Foundation of ex camp Fossoli
The Foundation of ex camp Fossoli (La Fondazione ex
campo Fossoli = the "Foundation"), established in 1996 by the Municipality of
Carpi by the Friends of "Museo Monumento at Deportato" has as objectives the
restoration and the enhancement of the historic memory of the former
concentration camp of Fossoli. The Center commits itself to collecting documents
and witness accounts, also to the historic research of the Fossoli camp, and ot
facilitate pedagogical activities on pacifist themes and conflicts resolution.
Since 1998, the Foundation is under the control
and supervision of the of the "Ministero dei Beni Culturali ed Ambientali". From
January 1, 2001, the Foundation administers the "Museo Monumento al Deportato e
del Campo di Fossoli", an activity previously administered directly by the
Municipality of Carpi.
Sources:
-
Associazione Nazionale ex Deportati Politici nei
Campi Nazisti (ANED) - I campi - Fossoli -
https://www.deportati.it/campi/fossoli/fossoli.htm
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New International Magazine online, Reviews - If
this is a man / The truce - https://www.newint.org/issue184/reviews.htm
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The Holocaust Chronicle PROLOGUE - Roots of the
Holocaust, pg. 520 (excerpt from 1944 Timeline) -
https://www.holocaustchronicle.org/StaticPages/520.html
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Scuola Media San Carlo - Storia del '900 -
Fossoli - https://www.comune.modena.it/scuole/smscarlo/WarNotOver/lager.htm
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ITSOS "Albe Steiner", Storia - Fossoli -
https://www.itsos.gpa.it/storia/steiner/steiner/fossoli.htm
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