Urbisaglia internship field

The Urbisaglia internship field It was set up, between June 1940 and October 1943, in the Villa Giustiniani Bandini at the Abbey of Chiaravalle di Fiastra. It is one of the numerous internal fields established by the fascist government at the time of Italy entrance in the Second World War.

Urbisaglia’s internment field was one of the first to be established by the Ministry of the Interior and entered operation on June 16, 1940.

The Ministry of the Interior convinces in Urbisaglia Internati for Police reasons (Italian anti -fascists and civilians considered dangerous), for reasons of war (Slovenians, Dalmatians and Croats suspected of supporting the partisan war) and for racial reasons (German Jews, Poles, former Czechoslovaks and former Austrians). In the time in which it remained operational, the Urbisaglia camp counted the passage of about 400 people.

Among the Italian Jewish internees suspicious for their anti -fascist sympathies we find Raffaele Cantoni, Carlo Alberto Viterbo, Eucardio Momigliano, Gino Pincherle, Bruno Pincherle, Renzo Bonfiglioli, Odoado della Torre, Renzo Cabib, Ugo Volli, Lion del Vecchio, Carlo Hanau with his children First Ugo and according to Lino. Among the foreign Jews Heinrich Ramras, Chaim Sternbach, Otto Bauer, Hermann Seemann, Leon Goldenberg and the writer Noël Calef.

The management of the field was entrusted to the Commissioner of Public Security Paolo Speia, while external surveillance was responsibility for the carabinieri. The beds were a hundred; On the ground floor a large hall was used as a refectory. The structure was overcrowded and cases of illness due to malnutrition were frequent. However, the living conditions remained acceptable. The villa was in good condition and equipped with a heating system. The internees had freedom of movement inside the large park. They could receive visits and take advantage of the aid equipped by the Delasem. A language courses for internees were organized, a library was created and a synagogue set up. According to the testimonies collected, the Jews were welcome from the local population, who tried to bring help according to their possibilities. Since many of them were traders, painters and even doctors, they spent their days helping farmers in the work of the fields or making them available to them, being reciprocated with the possibility of entertaining themselves in their homes for lunch. However, there was no lack of tensions, above all due to the overcrowding and the vexatious behavior of some guards. For protesting Raffaele Cantoni, he will be transferred as a “sobil” to the Tremiti internment field.

The arrivals and departures of the internees at the Urbisaglia camp followed each other until 8 September 1943, the day when the director of the field invited the internees to escape. The terror of being captured by the Germans, however, together with the lack of money, documents and knowledge of the places, led many to return to the field after a few days, also because the Quaestor of Macerata, who ordered the return, guaranteed that the internees civilians would have had nothing to fear.

In reality, in the following months, the internees of Urbisaglia, together with forty women from the women’s fields of the province of Macerata, were transferred to the concentration camp of Fossoli, in the province of Modena, and from there deported to the German extermination camps.

Of the deportees from Urbisaglia, Paul Pollak will be the only survivor. So remember in his memorial:

The Association House of Memory of Urbisaglia ETS, founded on March 26, 2022, promotes historical research on the internment field of Urbisaglia in order to reconstruct the events of those who were detained, affirm the values ​​of peace, democracy and solidarity, and pay homage to the victims of fascist repression and to all those who have opposed the barbarism of war and racism.

Founding Bodies: Municipality of Urbisaglia, University of Macerata, University of Camerino, Giustiniani Bandini Foundation.

Management Committee: Giovanna Salvucci (President), Paolo Francesco Giubileo (vice-president), Piero Chinellato (secretary), Domenico Mucci (treasurer), Angelo Ventrone, Michele Loreti, Egyptian Marzocco, Giulio Pantannetti, Gianfranco Borgano, Emanuele Ferrarini, Lina Caraceni (Directors).

The Association House of Memory of Urbisaglia ETS is based in the Municipality of Urbisaglia, Corso Giannelli n. 45, 62010 Urbisaglia (MC), Italy.

• Parents, Carlo Spartaco. Urbisaglia , in The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, Edited by Megargee Geoffrey P. – White Joseph R., vol. III: Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany , Indiana University Press, 2018, pp. 469-470.
• Savanna, Tuscany. ‘ The internment field of Urbisaglia (1940-1943) “, In C. Ferranti (edited by) Dear first, Anne and Elie , Eum Edizioni University of Macerata, 2016.
• Viterbo, Giuseppe (edited by). The return day that will come. Anthology of letters by Carlo Alberto Viterbo from the Urbisaglia concentration camp , Florence, Aska, 2015.
• Parents, Carlo Spartaco. The fields of the Duce. Civil internment in fascist Italy, 1940-1943 , Einaudi, Turin, 2004.
• Parents, Carlo Spartaco. “The internment of Italian Jews in 1940 and the field of Urbisaglia – Abbadia di Fiastra.” The monthly review of Israel , flight. 69, no. 1, 2003, pp. 347–368.
• Chiavari, Aldo. The last war in Val di Chienti. The passage of the front and the liberation of the Macerata 1940-46 . Macerata, Sico, 1997.
• Cruciani, Roberto. And 50 years of freedom, concentration camps, prisoners of war, free internment in the Marche 1940-1943 came , Macerata, Coop Artevisive, 1993.
• Renzo De Felice, History of Italian Jews under Fascism , Mondadori, Milan 1977.