S. Pugliese, Ferramonti di Tarsia. Calabria's forgotten internment camp

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When the A-3 Autostrada between Salernoand Reggio Calabria was constructed in the

1960s, engineers decided to build the high-

way directly through a forgotten fascist internment

camp from World War II with the result thattoday, millions of Italians and thousands of touristsrush right past an important historical site literally

divided by modernity and historical amnesia.Just north of Cosenza, during the dark days of

World War II, this camp, named Ferramonti, was

located near the tiny town of Tarsia. To their credit,the Italians can justly claim that until the Nazi occu-

pation of the country in 1943, not one Jew Italianor foreign was deported to the far more lethal

extermination camps in Germany or Poland.I was in Calabria on vacation this summer with

my wife and two children, and brought with me the

manuscript for a volume of collected essays onHolocaust survivor Primo Levi. I have never been to

Auschwitz or the other Nazi death camps, wary ofthe flourishing Holocaust tourism industry, but in

far-off Calabria I recalled reading about a nearby

Italian internment camp. I convinced my childrento join me in investigating this forgotten site and

Italys World War II history.While anti-Semitism has a long and ignoble history

in Italy, Jews were often spared the worst excesses that

unfolded in Eastern Europe. In fact, Jews came toItaly, even under the fascist regime, because they had

been told that conditions were relatively mild. Until1938, Benito Mussolini had kept the vicious anti-

Semites in his regime on a short leash; but that yearthe regime published the so-called Manifesto of the

Racial Scientists, a document which purported toprove that Italians were Aryans and that Jews

werent; therefore Jews could not be Italians. Most

people, to their credit, dismissed this as fascist propa-ganda. What could not be dismissed so easily were the

Racial Laws, modeled on the Nazi Nuremberg Laws,promulgated in the fall of 1938.

Even so, as war clouds gathered over Europe in

the late 1930s, European Jews came to Italy. Whenwar broke out in September 1939, fascist Italy, as

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Ferramonti di Tarsia:Calabrias Forgotten

Internment CampA Hofstra University professor rediscovers the regions World War II historyText and photos by Stanislao G. Pugliese

(Above) Author Stanislao Pugliese stands

before a monument at Ferramonti reading:

Interned in this place

By a despicable regime

Two thousand people

Of various faiths, races, and nationalities

With the example of their lives

And the solidarity of our people

Testify to the horrors of fascism

Fifty years later

The memory of Ferramonti

Is a warning to future generations

So that there will never again be

Hate, racism and war.

25 April 1990

The Ferramonti Foundation

See Related Story: Page 20 It Happened in ItalyAmbassador chats with author Elizabeth Bettina about her new

book detailing the experiences of Holocaust survivors in Italy.


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liberal Italy had done in 1914, stayed out of the war.

But, as in 1915, Italy entered the war in June 1940 asthe fall of France was imminent. Italian participa-tion in the Second World War was an unmitigateddisaster; defeat followed defeat on land, in the air,and on sea. After Mussolini insisted on sending anarmy, there were reports of cannibalism among Ital-ian troops on the Russian front. At home, Italy wassubject to indiscriminate and unchallenged bomb-ings, causing much civilian suffering. Once theAllies had crossed the Mediterranean and landed inSicily, Mussolinis days were numbered.

And in fact, in July 1943, the Fascist Grand Coun-cil met as a majority, including Mussolinis son-in-lawCount Galeazzo Ciano, and voted in favor of amotion of no confidence. Il Ducewas removed frompower the next day and arrested. For 45 days, Italywas in limbo between the Allies and the Nazis. OnSeptember 8, 1943, an armistice was announced andItaly became a co-belligerent alongside the Allies.The country itself was split in two with the Alliescontrolling the south and the German Wehrmachtand Nazi security forces, including the SS andGestapo, controlling Rome and the north.

Italian and foreign Jews found themselves in aprecarious situation. Unlike most Italians whoadopted a wait-and-see attitude, and unlike a smallminority that joined the armed Resistance, Italianand foreign Jews were often rounded up and placedin internment camps. When these camps wereadministered by Italian officials, conditions wererelatively benign; when the Germans occupied the

north, inmates were transported to Nazi deathcamps. Primo Levi, author of Survival inAuschwitz, was an inmate at the Fossoli camp nearModena. When captured by an Italian fascist militia,he was told to identify himself as a Jew rather than apartisan; as a Jew, he would be interned in theFossoli camp; as a partisan, he would have beensummarily executed. Another experience awaited

foreign Jews interned in that forgotten camp inCalabria, Ferramonti.In May 1940, construction of 92 barracks began

on what was to be the Ferramonti camp and by June20, it was operational. For most of its existence, itheld approximately 2,000 inmates with a high of2,700 in the summer of 1943. There, under thewatchful eye of a humane Calabrian state official,inmates were permitted to write letters, receivepackages from loved ones, study the Torah, conductreligious services and even get married.

Ferramonti was its own small town, with people

doing everything you do in a town, Max Kempin, aformer inmate, told author Elizabeth Bettina duringan interview for It Happened in Italy, her recentbook about the Italys treatment of Jews duringWorld War II. There were doctors, dentists, bakers,teachers, rabbis. They even had their own form ofgovernment in the camp.

Kempins father had read Hitlers Mein Kampfin 1933 and immediately decided to leave Germany;the decision saved his familys life. When war brokeout, his father was sent from Milan, where they

lived, to Ferramonti and his mother to anotherinternment camp in Calabria, near Spezzano dellaSilla. Max and his mother were able to visit hisfather at Ferramonti. Speaking to Bettina, Kempinshowed her a photo album of people at a picnic,playing music together, children in the campsschool, wedding photos and even a bris. More thantwenty children were born in the camp.

While no one was deported to the infamousdeath camps in northern Europe, life was not easyat Ferramonti. Inmates suffered from malariabecause of the surrounding marshes. Roll call wasthree times a day and inmates could not leave thebarracks before 7 a.m. or after 9 p.m. They couldnot discuss politics and required special permissionto read certain books or foreign publications.Cameras, radios and even playing cards wereprohibited. But no one was required to work andthose who did not receive financial support fromfamilies received a small stipend from the regime.

In an effort of democratic self-governance, eachbarrack elected a representative; once a week allrepresentatives met in an assembly which voted for a

leader. The fascist officials in charge of the camprecognized their position and worked together tomitigate the worst aspects of internment.

On May 22, 1941, the camp was visited by thepapal nuncio Monsignor Francesco Borgoncini-Duca. The Chief Rabbi of Genoa, Riccardo Pacificivisited the camp several times and performed reli-gious services there. An orchestra was created and


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performed, soccer tournaments were organized and

chess competitions held. Even with the presence ofdozens of doctors, hunger, malnutrition and diseasewere ever-present. In the summer of 1943, the Jewswere joined by anti-fascist partisans. I was furthersurprised to learn that a forgotten contingent ofChinese prisoners of war was also in Ferramonti.

Fortuitously, on the very day (July 25, 1943) thatcamp inmates were to be transferred north toanother camp in Bolzano, dangerously close to theborder, Mussolini was deposed and camp authoritiesdisregarded the order. On September 14, just 51days later, tanks of the British Eighth Armyappeared on the road and the inmates were freed.

Today, one wanders the site of the abandonedcamp with more questions than answers.

The only sign indicating the presence of the camphas fallen off a signpost. Entrance to the locked campis only possible by driving up the narrow, windingroad to the nearest town, Tarsia, and having a localofficial bring a key and escort you around. Many ofthe original 92 barracks have been destroyed. Thefew that were remaining were either in a state ofdisrepair or being restored by the Fondazione Museo

Internazionale della Memoria Ferramonti di Tarsia;they measured no more than 5 meters by 10 meters.One small building has been converted by theFondazione into a museum that collects and displays

documents and photos. One senses the presence ofghosts in a haunted landscape.

People dont want to remember what happenedhere, a local resident told author and journalistPaul Paolicelli when he came across Ferramonti in2002. Restoration of the camp, though, indicatesthat perhaps some people do want to rememberwhat happened here after all.

On April 25, 2004 il giorno della liberazione, thenational holiday in Italy commemorating the end ofWorld War II with financing from the communeof Tarsia, the Museum of Ferramonti was officiallyopened. It was a small but noble attempt to fight theforces of oblivion and historical amnesia.

References:In Italian, see Francesco Folino, Ferramonti, un lager diMussolini. Paul Paolicelli devotes a chapter to Ferramontiin his wonderful book Under the Southern Sun. See alsoElizabeth Bettinas recent book, It Happened in Italy,which focuses on the camps in the town Campagna nearNaples and Ferramonti. For a memoir in English of a campsurvivor, see Walter Wolffs Bad Times, Good People. For

further information about Ferramontis museum, contactthe Fondazione Museo Internazionale della Memoria Ferra-monti di Tarsia. Visit www.comune.tarsia.cs.it/storia/ferra-monti.htm and www.fondazioneferramonti.it

Stanislao G. Pugliese is Professor of History at HofstraUniversity and the author, most recently, of Bitter Spring:A Life of Ignazio Silone.

Scenes from Ferramonti

di Tarsia in summer 2009.

Documents

S. Pugliese, Ferramonti di Tarsia. Calabria's forgotten internment camp