© Manca Juvan

A memorial to victims of Mussolini's fascism in Gonars was erected during the cold war period in year 1973. At the local cemetery a shrine was created by a Yugoslav sculptor Miodrag Živković. The 453 remains of Slovene and Croatian citizens who died in internment were then moved to two crypts at the shrine. 

At the time of our unannounced visit municipality workers opened the collective burial place without hesitation, even when in order to do so, they had to drive to Gonars town to get the keys. The keeper spoke reverently about the past. He was eager to tell us about schoolchildren visiting the shrine and a historian Alessandra Kersevan leading educational tours on location. With affection he remembered the presence of Barbara Miklič Türk, a wife of a former Slovene president, a state representative at one of recent yearly commemorations.
Visiting the shrine was a deeply moving experience. Coming out of the silent humid crypts one faces the sculpture representing a flower: stainless steel petals surrounding a round, blood red mosaic. A keeper suggested to me to step in the middle of the mosaic. His invitation: "Say something", met my discomfort and curiosity. I don't remember what I've uttered, but something unexpected happened. 

The waves of sound bounced back amplified. I felt them within my body, in my guts. I gazed in awe at the keeper whose smiling eyes revealed familiarity with the visceral experience I went through seconds ago. 

I walked away changed. 
This experience reinforced the importance of visiting the locations of internment, a commitment we've made when starting the project Remembering Fascist Camps. Our aim's been to be first person witnesses, documentarians of locations that once were Italian fascist concentration camps for Slovene civilians. 

Summarizing our 2000 kilometers drive in Italy and Croatia, with less than clear maps and directions marking locations of internment, it was because of local people's help, our persistence and intuition that we've found all five locations in Italy: Visco, Gonars, Monigo Chiesanuova and Renicci, and one location in Croatia.  

It was a place where we could pay our respects to the victims, that we were in search for. 

 While in Gonars (Italy) and the island of Rab (Croatia) memorials are easy to find, on other locations the traces of once existing fascist concentration camps are scarce. However, it's the testimonies of survivors, which you will be able to learn about through this blog, that will reveal otherwise untold fascist interment experiences and memories. You are kindly invited to follow us.

© Manca Juvan

Because a nurse, Martina Košak was immediately appointed to an improvised nursery in a building at the time known as the outhouse of Hotel Kontinental. "She was in charge of children. They were laying on the floor. She said it was horrendous. As a woman and as a nurse she should be helping people, being children or adults, but she had nothing to help with," said Mr. Herman Janež, an internee himself, who became a custodian of the spoon.

"There was no water, no paper to put under those children who all had terrible diarrhea.  Warms grew under their bodies. There were no clothes. She told me the experience was so horrible for her that as a woman and as a nurse she couldn't withstand it," Mr. Herman Janež conveyed.

After the war Ms. Košak made a research whether any babies born on Rab have survived. She found four Slovene women, one of them was Marija Mohar who died in 2011. Mr. Janež, who was also researching the issue, found nine men. According to a list of internees on Rab created by Mr. Janež, at least 163 children under the age of fifteen died during the internment. 

Researchers and historians estimate that the annual mortality rate in the Rab camp was higher than the overage mortality rate in the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald. 

Concentration camp on Rab was operating from July 1942 to September 1943. 

On postcards sent from the concentration camp Gonars, Karlo Boštjančič (1915-2003) wrote about conducting the choir and concerts. The existence of a choir named Gonarski zvonček (Small Bell of Gonars) was life saving during times of induced hunger and lice infestation causing rashes or in worst cases epidemic typhus.

“He told me the baton was made from a broom handle. You can see that this is a broom handle”, Ms. Stanovnik introduced her family heritage. We clearly saw carvings representing slovene ethnic symbols: heart, coronation and wheat plant. At the hendel’s end of a conductor’s baton was a small harp and a metal badge with an inscription: “Gonarski zvonček, to our conductor, companion number 5389, Boštjančič Karl, 4.10.42”.

Mr. Boštjančič’s baton is a unique representation of a cultural life in an italian fascist concentration camp in Gonars.

It is unknown what songs they sang and if they were in Slovene language. “What a pity that testimonies were not more accurate and that I didn’t take notes. You now, when you are young, it just touches you briefly”, Ms. Stanovnik expressed her regret for missing memories.

Before Italian occupation of Ljubljana, Karlo Bošjančič was developing his academic career as young biology professor and expressed his musical skill level at the Opera. “I know that he was arrested during a rehearsal. Italian officers aligned the artists on the stage. Someone, hiding behind the curtain, was indicating whom should they pick up”, Ms. Stanovnik told about her father’s past. She knows the exact days of his internment. It was June 28, 1942 when he was transported to concentration camp in Gonars and later transferred to Monigo and back to Gonars. He was released from there on June 12, 1943.

Asking about reasons for her father's interment she answered: “What reasons did they have? They took the students and young intellectuals because they thought they might be unruly and will join the Liberation Front.”

As much as we tried, we didn't find a memorial place to pay our respects to the victims of this concentration camp, operating between February and September 1943. 

During eight months between 4500 to 6000 prisoners, mostly civilians from Slovenia and Croatia, were kept in internment there.

The concentration camp was a detention center mostly for people belonging to ethnic groups living in territories occupied by Italian army during WW2. Under the rule of fascism civilian inhabitants were displaced from areas today belonging to Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro.

At that point, we find it important to remember that as a result of the mistreatment of civilians interned during WW2, the Fourth Geneva Convention was established in 1949, in order to provide for the protection of civilians during times of war. We believe that in times of enormous human development and achievement, we need to remember the basic values of humanity and human responsibility. We should own the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which restricts the use of internment. Article 9 states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile." Enforcing the Declaration of Human Rights, we pay our respects to victims of Italian fascist camps.