Per comprendere la complessità di ciò che resta. Il Campo di Fossoli: costruzione, evoluzione, status quo

So as to understand the complexity of what remains. The Fossoli camp: construction, evolution, status quo. STRATIFIED MATTER. 1942-1943: building of the camp. In 1942, an area suitable for building POW camp no.73 (PG 73) is identified in Fossoli. Known from then on as Campo Vecchio (the ‘old camp’) or Camp no.1, the complex featured four sectors that contained 93 huts. The requirements of a quick and cheap construction phase resulted in simple buildings: rectangular, one-storey units with masonry walls and wooden trusses. However, the arrival of its prisoners before construction work had been completed imposed the creation of a second detention centre, which initially consisted of tents and only later was built in masonry. Known as Campo Nuovo (‘the new camp’) or Camp no.2, it was divided into three sectors, within which a whole series of buildings were constructed, only slightly different from those of the adjacent area. 1943-1945: the war years. From 1943 to 1945, the Polizei und Durchgangslager (Dulag 152), the General Bevollmachtigte Fur Den Arbeitseinsatz (or ‘Gathering and Sorting Centre for Forced Labour’), the Fascist concentration camp and the Foreign Refugee Centre were all based at the camp. The simplicity of the buildings and the alternating and dishonourable uses to which the camp was put made preservation of both complexes difficult. At the end of the war, the old camp was demolished (1945) and the new camp was abandoned (1946). 1947-1952: Nomadelfia. In 1947, thanks to the work of a parish priest, Fr. Zeno Saltini, the Opera Piccoli Apostoli di San Giacomo in Roncole was granted a transfer to Fossoli. The new settlement, known as the Community of Nomadelfia, inaugurated a profound rebirth: the symbols of oppression were removed and renovation work was carried out on both the buildings – roofs were repaired, walls were cut and replastered, windows and doors replaced, new fixtures and fittings added – and the open spaces, with the redesign of the outdoor layout and a planting programme. In 1952, the Nomadelfia period came to an end for a variety of reasons. 1954-1970: Villaggio San Marco. In 1954, the Julian-Dalmatian refugee assistance organisation of Rome transferred a hundred or so families from Istria to the camp at Fossoli: this marked the beginning of Villaggio San Marco. This new purpose required the creation of new divisions and new decor – mostly stencilled – inside dwellings and the conversion of hut no.9 into a church. In 1970, the camp was almost entirely abandoned. 1970-2004: Dereliction. Many decades followed, during which the precarious state of the buildings rendered them unable to resist the signs of neglect. WORN-OUT MATTER. In the years that followed the Villaggio San Marco period, the camp rapidly became derelict. The commendable work of the Fondazione ex Campo di Fossoli (the Fossoli Foundation), founded in 1996, only managed to halt part of the deterioration and collapse, which worsened in 2012 due to earthquakes and heavy snowfall. To date, apart from hut 14.1, which was reconstructed in keeping with its original state in 2004, the camp can be grouped according to three different states of conservation: one where huts still have a proportion of their walls and limited sections of roof, a similar group with remains of roofs and a third group with only fragments of wall. The analysis and comprehension of the surviving remains is the conditio sine qua non for their hoped-for survival.