The condition of 13 extermination camps and their sub-camps between 1944 and 1945, starting with those lesser-known in the Baltic region, is the focus of the new exhibition inaugurated at the Shoah Museum Foundation in Rome. Curated by historian Marcello Pezzetti, the project \u201cis to challenge a widespread and misleading \u2018rhetoric of liberation.\u2019 In many cases, speaking of liberation is a historical error, as the Nazis often abandoned the camps before the arrival of the Soviets and Americans.\u201d In other words, there was no resistance\u2014or at least very little. \u201cThat\u2019s why the concept of liberation is not even mentioned in the title,\u201d Pezzetti clarified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through emotionally powerful images, the exhibition helps visitors understand \u201cthe horrifying conditions\u201d in those camps. Documents and often graphic photographs are on display, including in a multimedia installation room \u201cwhich can only be accessed from a certain age, from middle school onwards.\u201d Alongside the photos and videos, there will be Italian testimonies about the opening of the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau and other camps involved in the so-called \u201cFinal solution.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The road to Rome<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is an exhibition, went on the historian, where \u201cbig history interacts with many microhistories.\u201d \u201cThere are also lesser-known stories. Like that of the Roman Jew Giacomo Moscato, who, after leaving Mauthausen, asked a farmer for directions to Rome: a farmer who could have only pointed him to Linz, Austria, at best …\u201d Among the topics discussed, is the Bolzano transit camp in the Gries-San Quirino district, in Trentino Alto Adige, which remained active until the end of World War II, and the San Sabba Risiera in Trieste, Italy\u2019s only extermination camp, located just a few kilometers from Piazza Unit\u00e0, where on September 18, 1938, Benito Mussolini had announced the racial laws. The exhibition also focuses on the painful \u201creturns\u201d from places of internment and extermination to the cities of origin. Two catalogs are available: one in Italian and the other in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mural by aleXsandro Palombo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The exhibition\u2019s opening was preceded by the unveiling of the mural \u201cAntisemitism, history repeating\u201d by artist aleXsandro Palombo, depicting Liliana Segre and Sami Modiano in their concentration camp uniforms. The artwork, which had been vandalized twice in Milan, was acquired by the Shoah Museum Foundation and is placed beneath a plaque outside the building commemorating October 16, 1943, the day when the raid on the Roman Ghetto took place. \u201cWhen we learned of the vandalism, we were overwhelmed with indignation,\u201d said Mario Venezia, president of the Foundation. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t give in to this symbolic violence. We transformed anger into an act of beauty and resistance, reaching out to the artist, who managed to reinvent the piece and create a new version in Rome.\u201d The artwork will be on display outdoors until February 2, after which it will be moved to the Foundation\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n