Description
The Risiera di San Sabba is the former rice-husking plant that the Nazis turned into a camp in 1943, on the outskirts of Trieste. It was the only camp in Italy with a crematorium; today it is a national monument and civic museum, a place of remembrance.
The complex was built in 1898 to process rice. After 8 September 1943 it became a camp for captured Italian soldiers, then, from the end of October, a “police detention camp” in the Adriatic Littoral, under the direct control of the Third Reich.
Italian, Slovene and Croatian partisans and political opponents were imprisoned, tortured and killed here, together with civilians seized in round-ups: between two and five thousand victims, according to estimates that are still debated. For more than 8,000 deportees it was instead the stop on the way to Auschwitz and the other camps: of the roughly 1,450 Jews who passed through here, only about twenty came back.
The complex, restored by the architect Romano Boico, became a museum in 1975 and preserves the places of the camp. The death cell was where prisoners waited to be killed and cremated, often within a few hours.
Next to it are the seventeen cells, where up to six people waited days or weeks for execution; the first two were used for torture. Thousands of identity documents confiscated from prisoners and deportees were found here.
In the four-storey building, in large dormitories, were the Jews and the prisoners bound for deportation: men and women of all ages, and children, some only a few months old. Where the crematorium stood, a metal plate marks the spot and a stele recalls the chimney.
The museum occupies the rooms that served as a mortuary at the time and displays objects and documents donated by former deportees. The Sala delle Croci shows a selection of possessions taken from the Jews of Trieste, donated by the city's Jewish Community.
The crematorium came into operation on 6 April 1944, to burn the bodies of some seventy hostages shot the day before at Villa Opicina. On the night of 29-30 April 1945 the fleeing Nazis blew it up to destroy the evidence; human bones and ashes were found in the rubble.
Justice came late. The trial opened in Trieste only in 1976, after thirty years of investigation, and convicted the commander Joseph Oberhauser in absentia. He never served his sentence: he died a free man in Munich in 1979.
Don't miss
• The death cell.
• The seventeen cells.
• The site of the crematorium.
• The museum.
Did you know?
• After the war the Risiera was used as a reception centre for Italian refugees from the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus.
The complex was built in 1898 to process rice. After 8 September 1943 it became a camp for captured Italian soldiers, then, from the end of October, a “police detention camp” in the Adriatic Littoral, under the direct control of the Third Reich.
Italian, Slovene and Croatian partisans and political opponents were imprisoned, tortured and killed here, together with civilians seized in round-ups: between two and five thousand victims, according to estimates that are still debated. For more than 8,000 deportees it was instead the stop on the way to Auschwitz and the other camps: of the roughly 1,450 Jews who passed through here, only about twenty came back.
The complex, restored by the architect Romano Boico, became a museum in 1975 and preserves the places of the camp. The death cell was where prisoners waited to be killed and cremated, often within a few hours.
Next to it are the seventeen cells, where up to six people waited days or weeks for execution; the first two were used for torture. Thousands of identity documents confiscated from prisoners and deportees were found here.
In the four-storey building, in large dormitories, were the Jews and the prisoners bound for deportation: men and women of all ages, and children, some only a few months old. Where the crematorium stood, a metal plate marks the spot and a stele recalls the chimney.
The museum occupies the rooms that served as a mortuary at the time and displays objects and documents donated by former deportees. The Sala delle Croci shows a selection of possessions taken from the Jews of Trieste, donated by the city's Jewish Community.
The crematorium came into operation on 6 April 1944, to burn the bodies of some seventy hostages shot the day before at Villa Opicina. On the night of 29-30 April 1945 the fleeing Nazis blew it up to destroy the evidence; human bones and ashes were found in the rubble.
Justice came late. The trial opened in Trieste only in 1976, after thirty years of investigation, and convicted the commander Joseph Oberhauser in absentia. He never served his sentence: he died a free man in Munich in 1979.
Don't miss
• The death cell.
• The seventeen cells.
• The site of the crematorium.
• The museum.
Did you know?
• After the war the Risiera was used as a reception centre for Italian refugees from the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus.