After our time at Pisa we continued onto Carpi to visit the
Deportee Memorial Museum and the Fossoli Transient/Concentration Camp where we
were welcomed by a representative from the Museum, as well as a city official. Needless
to say this was a very moving experience for all of us. Even though the museum
was understated it still portrayed a powerful message of man’s inhumanity
during WWII. Our guide shared several stories of individual sacrifice. In the
last room, The Room of the Names, there were over 14,000 names of Italian
political and racial prisoners who were deported to Nazi Death Camps. These
were names were randomly chosen from the more than 60,000 on the official list
of Italian deportees. Among these 14,000
names was one very familiar to most of the students – Anna Frank. Another extremely moving experience while in
the Room of the Names came when students read excerpts taken from the Letters’
of the Condemned to Death of the European Resistance (Einaudi, Torino,
1954). These excerpts were also inscribed
on the walls throughout the museum.
From the museum, we headed to the actual Fossoli Camp. As we walked through the camp, the remnants
of the “housing” and various other buildings while learning where the prisoners
went from time of arrival to time of departure to the Death Camps. We also learned how the camp was separated
from Political prisoners (wearing red triangles) and racial prisoners (wearing
yellow triangles). The camp was
officially closed in 1945 as a concentration camp – ending a horrific era.
However, the Italians rose above these atrocities by turning
the camp into an orphanage run Don Zeno Saltini in 1947 until 1952. After that, the camp was transformed once
again into a refugee camp named Villagio San Marco. These people turned the camp into a more
home-like atmosphere by planting gardens and getting rid of all the barbed wire
and fences. This Villagio remained until
those people could return home in 1972 when the camp was abandoned for
good. Many trees have now grown up
through the buildings and many are falling down due to the massive earthquake
of 2012.
After our visit, our city official asked for a picture of him with the students to remember their visit. Only a handful chose to participate in this.
We will leave you tonight with a final quote from Bertolt
Brecht (The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui):
You too; You ought to learn to see, not look up in the air.
To act, not speak.
This monster was once on the verge of ruling the world!
He was suppressed by the people, but let us not cry victory
too soon;
The womb that bore him is still fertile.
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