The Heritage of a Transit Camp

Cassani Simonetti, Matteo; Mira, Roberta; Salerno, Daniele

The Heritage of a Transit Camp

Fossoli: History, Memory, Aesthetics

by Matteo Cassani Simonetti (Volume editor) Roberta Mira (Volume editor) Daniele Salerno (Volume editor)

History & Political Science

Series: Cultural Memories, Volume 16

Summary

The former camp of Fossoli in northern Italy was established in 1942 by the Royal Italian Army as a camp for prisoners of war, later becoming a Nazi-Fascist concentration and transit camp for political opponents, Jews and forced labourers. After the war it became a Catholic community for orphans and a camp for refugees from the former Italian territories of Istria until 1970. A complex system of memory and heritage stems from the legacy of the former camp: its remains, the Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee by architects BBPR, and the synagogues of Carpi. The Fondazione Fossoli, created in Carpi in 1996, manages this legacy with the purpose of preserving and transmitting the historical memory of the Fossoli camp.
Linking together the history of the Holocaust, the resistance to Nazi-Fascism and the political and civic commitment that inspired the birth of the Italian Republic after the dictatorship and the war, Fossoli lies at the very core of Italy’s contemporary cultural memory. The essays in this volume analyse, from different disciplinary perspectives, the material and immaterial heritage that constitutes a rich and articulated memorial system today.
Texts by Lorenzo Bertucelli, Matteo Cassani Simonetti, Pierluigi Castagnetti, Paolo Faccio, Robert S. C. Gordon, Viviana Gravano, Giovanni Leoni, Marzia Luppi, Roberta Mira, Daniele Salerno, Andrea Ugolini and Patrizia Violi.

Excerpt

Cover
Title
Copyright
About the editors
About the book
This eBook can be cited
Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword: The Heritage of a Transit Camp: Fossoli (Pierluigi Castagnetti)
List of Abbreviations and Archives
1 At the Roots of the Fossoli Foundation: The Fossoli Camp (Marzia Luppi)
2 The Southern Terminal. Italy and the Memories of Deportation: A Transnational Perspective (Lorenzo Bertucelli)
3 The Fossoli Foundation and Its Heritage of History and Memory (Roberta Mira)
4 In Memory of the Other Resistance: The Places and Architecture of the Fossoli Memorial (Giovanni Leoni)
5 Pensaci, uomo! : Holocaust Memory, the Photo-Icon-Object and Licalbe Steiner at Carpi (Robert S. C. Gordon)
6 Rethinking Trauma, Rethinking History: The Case of Fossoli-Carpi (Viviana Gravano and Patrizia Violi)
7 Domesticity and Sacredness in Synagogue Architecture: The Oratory and Temple in Carpi (1722–1921) (Matteo Cassani Simonetti)
8 The Afterlife of the Fossoli Camp (Daniele Salerno)
9 The Remains and the Landscape: Strategies for Active Conservation of the Former Campo di Fossoli (Paolo Faccio and Andrea Ugolini)
Essential Timeline
Notes on Contributors
Index
Series index

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Illustrations

Figure 0.1.The graffito inscription in the hall of the Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee in Carpi. AFF.

Figure 1.1.Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee. The courtyard of the castle with the stelae. AFF.

Figure 1.2.The Fossoli camp, 1943. AFF.

Figure 1.3.Watchtower, 1943. AFF.

Figure 1.4.Reconstruction plan of the Fossoli camp in 1943–4. AFF.

Figure 1.5.Demolition of camp boundary fence during the Nomadelfia period. AFF.

Figure 1.6.Villaggio San Marco. AFF.

Figure 1.7.National exhibition on Nazi concentration camps, 1955. Modena, Historical Institute Archive.

Figure 1.8.National exhibition on Nazi concentration camps, 1955. Modena, Historical Institute Archive.

Figure 1.9.Italian towns that hosted the national exhibition on Nazi concentration camps between 1955 and 1960. AFF.

Figure 1.10.Cover of the booklet Museo Monumento al Deportato Politico e Razziale nei Campi di Sterminio Nazisti, 1973. ASCC.

Figure 1.11.Opening of the Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, 1973. Photo B. Lopetrone, 1973. AFF.

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Figure 1.12.Fossoli Foundation, Via Rovighi, Carpi. Photo M. Cassani Simonetti, 2019.

Figure 2.1.Poster of the exhibition Memoria della deportazione by Lica Steiner. Milano, 1981.

Figure 2.2.Primo Levi, Se questo è un uomo, 1947, front cover.

Figure 2.3.Poster of the National Celebration of the Resistance in Concentration Camps, 1955. Modena, Historical Institute Archive.

Figure 2.4.Reconstruction of the watchtower of the Fossoli camp, during the national exhibition on Nazi concentration camps, 1955. Modena, Historical Institute Archive.

Figure 2.5.Poster by Albe Steiner, 1972.

Figure 2.6.A hall of the Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee in Carpi. AFF.

Figure 2.7.Primo Levi, I sommersi e i salvati, 1986, front cover.

Figure 3.1.The permanent exhibition on Fossoli camp history in the reconstructed shack in the camp. AFF.

Figure 3.2.Aerial view of the so-called old camp (demolished) and new camp, 1980s. AFF.

Figure 3.3.Memorial stone at the Cibeno firing range. AFF.

Figure 3.4.Inauguration of the wall of memory at the Fossoli camp, 1955. Modena, Historical Institute Archive.

Figure 3.5.Opening of the Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, 1973. Photo B. Lopetrone, 1973. AFF.

Figure 3.6.The Fossoli camp nowadays. Photo S. Angel, 2009. AFF.

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Figure 4.1.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi. The graffito by Corrado Cagli. Photo A. Chemollo, 2020.

Figure 4.2.M. Fiorentino, G. Perugini, Ardeatine Memorial, 1944–51, Rome. AFF.

Figure 4.3.M. Fiorentino, G. Perugini, Ardeatine Memorial, 1944–51, Rome. AFF.

Figure 4.4.BBPR, Monument in Memory of the Fallen in Concentration Camps, Milano, 1946. First solution, working drawings.

Figure 4.5.BBPR, Monument in Memory of the Fallen in Concentration Camps, Milano, 1950. Second solution, perspective.

Figure 4.6.BBPR group in the 1930s: Enrico Peressutti, Lodovico Belgiojoso, Ernesto Nathan Rogers and Gian Luigi Banfi.

Figure 4.7.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi, 1963. Competition project, plan. AFF.

Figure 4.8.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi, 1963. Competition project, perspective of the courtyard. AFF.

Figure 4.9.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi, 1963. Competition project, internal perspective. AFF.

Figure 4.10.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi. Competition project, plan. Drawing by M. S. Badiali, G. Birarelli, N. Covili, M. Dellapasqua and E. Savini. AFF.

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Figure 4.11.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi. Realized project, plan. Drawing by M. S. Badiali, G. Birarelli, N. Covili, M. Dellapasqua and E. Savini. AFF.

Figure 4.12.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi. Photos of building yard. AFF.

Figure 4.13.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi. Photos of building yard. AFF.

Figure 4.14.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi. The Hall of Names. Photo A. Chemollo, 2020.

Figure 4.15.The presentation of the Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee on the journal L’architettura. Cronache e storia, 1974.

Figure 4.16.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi. A hall of the Museum. Photo A. Chemollo, 2020.

Figure 4.17.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi. The courtyard of the castle with the stelae. Photo A. Chemollo, 2020.

Figure 4.18.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi. The graffito by Corrado Cagli. Photo A. Chemollo, 2020.

Figure 4.19.Lodovico Belgiojoso, Notes on Fossoli.

Figure 4.20.Lodovico Belgiojoso et al., Redevelopment of Fossoli concentration camp, Carpi, 1998. Competition project, perspective. ASCC.

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Figure 4.21.Roberto Maestro et al., Redevelopment of Fossoli concentration camp, Carpi, 1998. Symbolic architectural elements. ASCC.

Figure 4.22.Gian Luca Tura et al., Redevelopment of Fossoli concentration camp, Carpi, 1998. Competition project, site plan with shadows. ASCC.

Figure 5.1.Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee in Carpi – poster designed by Albe Steiner.

Figure 5.2.Cover of Enea Fergnani’s book Un uomo e tre numeri designed by Albe Steiner.

Figure 5.3.Mostra della deportazione dei campi nazisti – poster designed by Albe Steiner.

Figure 5.4.Front cover of Pensaci, uomo!

Figure 6.1.BBPR, The Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee, Carpi. The Hall of Names. AFF.

Figure 7.1.The former nineteenth-century synagogue. Photo M. Cassani Simonetti, 2019.

Figures 7.2–7.3.Plans and sections of the building. The synagogues and their respective entrances are marked in dark grey. A. Entrance and staircase leading to the nineteenth-century synagogue; B. The staircase leading to the eighteenth-century synagogue; C. The atrium of the nineteenth-century synagogue; D. The nineteenth-century synagogue; E. The matroneum in the nineteenth-century synagogue; F. The entrance to the eighteenth-century synagogue; G. The matroneum in the eighteenth-century synagogue; H. The eighteenth-century synagogue; Image processed by the author of a survey of the building (2007), originally in 1:50 scale. Municipality of Carpi, Historic Centre Office.

Figure 7.4.Map of the city of Carpi, 1860. The ‘scuola degli Ebrei’, or School of the Jews, only the boundaries of which are indicated with a dotted line, is marked as number 13. Although its location was hidden from the street, it was connected directly to the main piazza in Carpi and with the most important places in the city. Modena, Luigi Poletti Civic Art Library, inv. no. 483.

Figure 7.5.The former eighteenth-century synagogue. Photo M. Cassani Simonetti, 2019.

Figure 7.6.The stairwell leading to the former eighteenth-century synagogue. Photo M. Cassani Simonetti, 2019.

Figure 7.7.Bartolomeo Artioli, appraisal of the home of Isacco, Anselmo and Giacobbe Finzi, 20 June 1827. The letter ‘O’ indicates the ‘Staircase shared with the synagogue’, while the letter ‘T’ indicates the courtyard that would be closed about thirty years later to build the new synagogue. Carpi, Civic Archives.

Figure 7.8.The staircase leading to the former nineteenth-century synagogue. Photo M. Cassani Simonetti, 2019.

Figure 7.9.The atrium of the former nineteenth-century synagogue. Photo M. Cassani Simonetti, 2019.

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Figure 7.10.The exterior of the nineteenth-century synagogue prior to restoration. Carpi, archives of the Ethnographic Research Centre, Foto Ravenna.

Figure 7.11.The interior of the nineteenth-century synagogue, facing the Aròn, 1920s. Carpi, archives of the Ethnographic Research Centre, copy from Foto Centro Stampa.

Figure 7.12.The interior of the nineteenth-century synagogue, facing the entrance, 1920s. Carpi, archives of the Ethnographic Research Centre, copy by Giancarlo Salami from an original by Tirelli.

Figure 8.1.L’Unità (15 October 1973), inauguration of the Museum and Monument to the Political and Racial Deportee.

Figure 9.1.Fossoli, Campo Nuovo, a shack. Photo S. Angel, 2009. AFF.

Figure 9.2.The Buna Werke of IG Farben factory in Monowitz concentration camp, 1941. Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-2007-0058 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5420107 > accessed 16 July 2017.

Figure 9.3.Dachau, Appelplatz after ‘clean camp’ operation. Photo N. Gent, Skulptur in der KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau, geschaffen 1968 von Nandor … Mapio.net. accessed 16 July 2017.

Figure 9.4.Dachau, the rebuilt shacks. The interior. Photo L. Jaramillo.

Figure 9.5.Auschwitz I, rebuilt wooden guard. Photo A. Ugolini, 2016.

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Figure 9.6.Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the railway with a conserved wagon. Photo A. Ugolini, 2016.

Figure 9.7.Auschwitz II-Birkenau, securing of a shack by the permanent conservation service of the museum. Photo A. Ugolini, 2016.

Figure 9.8.The Risiera di San Sabba. Photo M. Covi, <https://divisare.com/projects/316146-foti-pagliaro-marco-covi-risiera-di-san-sabba-trieste#lg=1&slide=0 > accessed 17 July 2018.

Details

Pages: XXVI, 328
Year: 2021
ISBN (PDF): 9781789979053
ISBN (ePUB): 9781789979060
ISBN (MOBI): 9781789979077
ISBN (Softcover): 9781789979046
DOI: 10.3726/b17301
Language: English
Publication date: 2021 (October)
Keywords: Italy Concentration Camps Post-War Memory The Heritage of a Transit Camp Matteo Cassani Simonetti Roberta Mira Daniele Salerno
Published: Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Wien, 2021. XXVI, 328 pp., 14 fig. col., 84 fig. b/w.

Biographical notes

Matteo Cassani Simonetti (Volume editor) Roberta Mira (Volume editor) Daniele Salerno (Volume editor)

Matteo Cassani Simonetti is Senior Assistant Professor of History of Architecture at the Department of Architecture of the University of Bologna. Roberta Mira is currently Adjunct Professor of History of Conflicts at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Daniele Salerno is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at the University of Utrecht, in collaboration with the University of Buenos Aires, and associate member of the ERC research group «Remembering Hope: The Cultural Memory of Protest in Europe» (REACT).

The Heritage of a Transit Camp

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