A road Padua-Vicenza lead us to Chiesanuova. We were searching for a military facility, indicated as a former fascist concentration camp area for Yugoslav civilians, mostly Slovenes. Driving we passed by apartment buildings, houses, bars, shops and stores, a church … when suddenly, a wide area opened up and an orange brick building caught our attention.

We were supposedly standing at the entrance of the caserma Romagnoli, a shut down Italian military area. It is surrounded by high walls and rusty barbed wire. Gates are locked with chains.

In an absence of a sign, we were guessing if we found a location that during Word War II was a fascist concentration camp, established at the end of July 1942.

The first internees - they were 1.429 - were Slovene men from the Province of Ljubljana - an occupied and annexed territory. The camp was in operation for twelve months. Later it received internees from Croatian islands of Zlarin and Rab, and from an Italian island Ustica. During the twelve months of its operation 70 men died.

Facts we share are gathered from history books. There is no memorial preserving the historic memory at the site.

Walking the street we greeted people taking care of their garden. Their spacious home is facing the wall of the caserma. I didn't hesitate to ask if they know, what was behind the walls during the war. A lively conversation developed followed by an invitation to enter the house. Our host, remembering his roots and the history of the house, brought a book. He opened it on the page with a large areal picture of Padua, taken during the war. He pointed with a finger his family house and the military area in Chiesanuova. "This area was heavily bombed during the World War II. Do you see the explosion craters? Our house wasn't hit. We were lucky."

I repeated the question if, as a family living in the neighborhood of the military area for more than hundred years, he knows if the facility functioned as a concentration camp? Instead of answering he suggested to contact Ugo Usardi, an old man who is knowledgeable about that period of local history.

Living Chiesanuova we felt bitter. There is no designated place to remember, grieve and pay our respects. There is no memorial with names of men who died in the internment in Chiesanuova.

© Manca Juvan

We came across this large field in our attempt to locate the site of a concentration camp on the island of Rab. Comparing the reality in front of us to the printed old map indicating this camp for civilians, it all seemed so incomprehensibly bigger now.

Then, an unexpected storm approached. Suddenly, I found myself trudging through the marshy grass field, my feet with every further step becoming wetter and wetter. Within moments, while my step was already sinking, I traveled back in time, to the year 1942.

On this island where water was otherwise scarce, a sudden autumn storm then flooded the camp. The section where mainly women, children and elders were stationed was hurt the most. It only took moments, according to the survivors' testimonies, for hundreds of tents to be soaked and blown away, and the interned shouting in panic: The sea's rising, we'll sink!

Flood water was rising so fast that it went up to people's waists, and its force was such that it carried away the children. But, none of them had any other place to go. Children were found next morning on the barbed wire and in the nearby spring. Dead. Drowned.

Soaked myself in only moments from this otherwise normal April weather storm, standing on this very field now barely flooded, I could almost feel the screams and panic which that night storm brought.

© 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

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.