Exilescapes in a Hangar - Exilescapes in a Camp: Period Rooms from the Lost Nation

It was in the Magazzino 18, a hangar of the old Trieste harbour, that the Italians who had to flee from Pola left their belongings in 1946. The Padriciano refugee camp represents the tragic destiny of the Italians from Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia, who were forced to flee from their cities after WWII. Both of these places appear as though frozen in the moment that saw the Italians leave, taking with them as much as they could of their things, including furniture, children toys, books, household utensils as well as farm implements. By focusing on the permanent exhibition of the Padriciano camp and on the temporary exhibition of Magazzino 18, this chapter draws attention to those unsettling and haunting period rooms that provide an image of a lost home and deal with the difficulty of working through the trauma of such a loss. It also suggests situating these exhibitions within the broader comparative context of other museums dedicated to the issue of forced migrations, in Germany, France, and Korea.