Risiera di San Sabba

Risiera di San Sabba (Slovene: Rižarna) is a five-storey brick-built compound located in Trieste, northern Italy, that functioned during World War II as a Nazi concentration camp for the detention and killing of political prisoners, and a transit camp for Jews, most of whom were then deported to Auschwitz.[1] SS members Odilo Globočnik and Karl Frenzel, and Ivan Marchenko are all said to have participated in the killings at this camp. The cremation facilities, the only ones built inside a concentration camp in Italy, were installed by Erwin Lambert, and were destroyed before the camp was liberated. Today, the former concentration camp operates as a civic museum.[2]

Risiera di San Sabba
Concentration camp
Internal courtyard of the Risiera di San Sabba. The remains of the crematorium can be seen on the wall.
Location of Risiera di San Sabba within Italy
Coordinates45°37′15″N 13°47′21″E
LocationTrieste, Italian Social Republic
Operated bySS
InmatesItalian Political prisoners, Italian Jews, Yugoslavian Resistance fighters and Yugoslavian civilians (primarily Slovenes and Croats)
Killed3,000-5,000
Notable inmatesBoris Pahor

Background

The building was erected in 1913 and first used as a rice-husking facility (hence the name "Risiera"). During World War II, German occupation forces in Trieste used the building to transport, detain and exterminate prisoners. Many occupants of Risiera di San Sabba were transported to the German Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Occupied Poland.[3] Historians estimate that over 3,000 people were killed at the Risiera camp and thousands more imprisoned and transported elsewhere. The majority of prisoners came from Friuli, the Julian March and the Province of Ljubljana.

Boris Pahor was also held at the camp before being transported to the concentration camps of Dachau and Natzweiler-Struthof.

After the war, the camp served as a refugee camp and transit point in the 1950s, where many people, especially ethnic Italians fled Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

See also

References
  1. La Risiera di San Sabba. Le Deportazioni, La Liberazione. moked/מוקד il portale dell'ebraismo italiano.
  2. The Museum (2009). "Risiera di San Sabba. History and Museum" (PDF). With selected bibliography. International Committee of the Nazi Lager of Risiera di San Sabba, Trieste: 1–7. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 7, 2012. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  3. The Museum (2009). "Risiera di San Sabba. History and Museum" (PDF). With selected bibliography. International Committee of the Nazi Lager of Risiera di San Sabba, Trieste: 1–7. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 7, 2012. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.