One of the darkest pages of the Shoah in Turin has long remained unknown. On December 3, 1943, the fascist police arrested 20 Jewish women between 65 and 85 years of age in the shelter of Via Como 140 (today Via Ghedini 6). The women had been displaced from the Israelite Hospice in Piazza Santa Giulia, which had been bombed in August. After the ordinance of the Mussolini-led, Nazi-GermOne of the darkest pages of the Shoah in Turin has long remained unknown. On December 3, 1943, the fascist police arrested 20 Jewish women between 65 and 85 years of age in the shelter of Via Como 140 (today known as Via Ghedini 6). The women were there because they had been displaced from the Israelite Hospice in Piazza Santa Giulia, which had been bombed in August. After the ordinance of the Mussolini-led, Nazi-German puppet state Republic of Sal\u00f2 on November 30, 1943, they became targets of the Jew hunt officially initiated by the fascists. They were thus all taken from Via Como and incarcerated in Turin\u2019s Le Nuove\u201d prison.
\n\u201cAn event largely unknown with some of its pieces are still missing,\u201d Claudio Mercandino, a journalist of the ANPI (National Association of Italian Partisans) \u201cRenato Martorelli\u201d section, told Pagine Ebraiche. Mercandino has dealt with the case in depth, starting with an initial cue from the historian Nicola Adducci. \u201cFrom a numerical point of view, it is the most significant episode of the Shoah in Turin,\u201d he noted. \u201cYet even we knew little to nothing about it,\u201d the president of the city\u2019s Jewish Community, Dario Disegni, confirmed. Turin\u2019s municipality has now decided to pay a tribute to these women\u2019s, by dedicating a plaque and a garden to their memory.
\nTheir fate, Mercandino recounts, can be divided into several acts. \u201cAfter the arrest, between December 12 and 14, most of the 20 women were freed on the basis of a document temporarily suspending the detention procedure for people over 70 or seriously ill.\u201d Out of the 20 women, some died in a communal shelter of hardship and illness: Vittoria Bianchi, Giustina Debenedetti, Giuseppina Finzi, Letizia Jachia, Diamante Levi, Esterina Levi, Giulia Sforni.
\n\u201cTwo of them (Rosina Valobra and Consolina Levi) are buried in the cemeteries of Pinerolo and Strambino Romano. At least six were captured in the second act of this story: on March 7, 1944, they were arrested again in another hospice raid. They were deported first to Fossoli and from there to Auschwitz, where they were immediately killed. Five others survived. We know very little of all of them,\u201d Mercandino explains. However, we know their names: Teresita Teglio, Sara Colombo, Rosa Vita, Emma Lascar, Ercolina Levi, Aida Montagnana, Dolcina De Angeli, Ottavia Levi, Eugenia Treves, Zeffira Ghiron, Eugenia Finzi. \u201cBut there might be other names. Men, for example, are missing.\u201d Precise references to the identities of these people are also missing. \u201cUnfortunately, at the moment there are very few oral records that remember them,\u201d Disegni pointed out.<\/p>\n