Just in these days, the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, has appointed Liliana Segre, a living witness to the horrors of the Shoah, a senator for life. She was deported as a child to Auschwitz and survived the concentration camp.
Actions like this once again reaffirm that a generation that ignores history has no past… or future. From this suggestion this itinerary was born on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance.
We are in Trieste. Far North East. A parking lot of a well-known supermarket. A concrete wall. As if to hide one of the many war events that upset Trieste. We are in the Valmaura district, on the outskirts. Near the Ironworks. 80 years ago the racial laws were promulgated in the central Piazza Unità. Right here, in this district far from the good living room of the city, is the Risiera di San Sabba. The only example of a Nazi concentration camp in Italy. The following are the information for a visit to the Risiera di San Sabba in Trieste.
La Risiera di San Sabba: a page not to be forgotten
It is a rice processing plant built in 1913. It was used after 8 September 1943 by the Nazi occupier becoming Stalag 339. First as a prison camp. Then destined for the sorting of deportees going to Germany and Poland. But also a deposit of the looted goods and a place of detention and elimination of hostages, partisans, political prisoners and Jews. The prisoners arrived from prisons or from roundups between Trieste, Veneto and Slovenia. On April 4, 1944, a crematorium was also put into operation.
A “virtual” visit to the Risiera
A long corridor of concrete blocks and an internal courtyard. On the ground floor we find the tailoring and shoe making workshops. Following the dormitories for officers and soldiers of the SS. Also here the seventeen tiny cells for six prisoners. It was here that we lived suspended between an immediate death or only postponed. The doors and walls were covered in graffiti and writing. Today they are lost but whose testimony remains thanks to the diaries of Diego de Henriquez, who transcribed them.
Those destined for deportation to Germany were held in an adjacent building. Among these also women and children.
A third building was intended for eliminations. Right here was the crematorium. In the night between 29 and 30 April 45 it was blown up by the fleeing Nazis.
Some numbers
The number of victims in the Risiera fluctuates between 3-5 thousand people (from Trieste, Slovenia, Croatia, Friuli, Istria and Jews). To this must be added the number of those who were deported from here. After the war it was used as a refugee camp and finally abandoned.
In 1965 the Risiera di San Sabba was declared a National Monument. The death cell and the 17 detention cells remained unchanged.
Information
If you are planning a visit to Trieste, the cradle of Central Europe, I hope I have enticed you to visit the Risiera di San Sabba! This is a summary of information:
via Giovanni Palatucci, 5 - Trieste
Free entry
Bus 8-10
Information: tel. 040 826 202
