Visit to the Resistance Museum

Sunday October 9 was our first rainy day of the trip.  It worked out fine for us, as we slept in after staying up past 2:30 a.m. to follow the Blue Jays meltdown.  Very stressful evening indeed! 

After a late breakfast, we headed out to the Museo Diffuso della Resistenza, della Deportazione, della Guerra, del Diritti e della Libertà ("Widespread" Museum of Resistance, Deportation, War, Rights and Freedom).   Definitely one of the longest names of a Museum we have come across, but one well worth visiting.

The Museum opened in 2003 inside an 18th century complex (Palazzo des Quartieri Militari di San Celso), designed by Filippo Juvarra in the first half of the 18th century to house the infantry troops of King Vittorio Amedeo II.  The idea for the Museum dates from 1999.  Since 2009, the International Primo Levi Studies Centre is has been located in the same building.

Signage outside the Museum (Memory, Evidence)

Peace

There is a permanent display entitled: Turin 1938-1948 From the Racial Laws to the Constitution, "which illustrates everyday life during the war, the German occupation, the Italian Resistance and the return of democracy, through the images, sounds and the voices of witnesses presented in multimedia installations.  The concept of "Museo diffuse (widespread museum), highlights the link with the local territory and the commitment towards the promotion of the places of remembrance".

Sign outside entrance

Inside the entrance was a map and list of sites in Torino related to the themes of the museum.  The list includes places where Partisans were shot; the Synagogue which was bombed by the Allies; Prisons; Execution and other important sites.

Map with sites

The displays are divided into five stages: Everyday Life ; Life under the Bombs; Life under the Regime; Life under the Occupation and Life in Liberty.  Each stage consists of the juxtaposition of two interviews, in which the main theme is told by witnesses through the memory of their personal experiences.  Each pair of interviews is accompanied by a montage of images selected from films and documentaries of the time.    

We used a head-set to hear the voices of the interviewees.  There were English subtitles on the mirror screens which contained the interviews.   They were very riveting and we listened to them all.  

There were a number of mirrors with testimony of groups of two people under each theme.  The interviews were done a few years before the museum opened in 2003.

Alonso listening to a set of testimonies

Everyday Life: The first set of interviews was with a student who took part in the Russian campaign.  He talked about being in Russia and Poland and seeing Jews being rounded up.  He remembers a fellow Italian soldier handing a water bottle to someone in a cattle car, and a German soldier pushing him aside and breaking the bottle.  He also talked about the lack of food on the front.  He said that because he was an officer, he made it back to Italy.  The woman interviewed talked about working in a factory during the war and joining the resistance.

Everyday Life interviews

Life in the Occupation:

Enzo Pettini and Matilde Di Pietrantonio were both Partisans.  Pettini worked in a factory but lived at the other end of town. He talked about being five minutes late a couple of times to work and his supervisor telling him not to do it again.  However, he had a mission to carry out and returned to the work site.  Di Pietrantonio talked about taking hostages to save other lives, but never harming them as opposed to the cruelty of the Germans.

Interviews with the two Partisans

Niche with videos of Italian fascists

Life Under the Regime:

This section had a fascinating interview with Giorgina Arian Levi, a Jewish woman born in Torino in 1910.  She came from a left-wing family and was a teacher.  She talks about having to join the Fascist party in order to teach.  She was an independent thinker and tried to teach in an innovative way.  She emigrated with her husband to Bolivia in 1936, after the Racial Laws were passed and did not return to Italy until 1946.  They chose Bolivia because the country was offering jobs for Jewish professionals.  They lived in a rural part of Bolivia and she became more radicalized.  She talks about reading Marx and Engels for the first time.   The other interview was with Mario Giacometti who talked about joining the Youth Movement of the National Fascist Party when he was thirteen.  He enjoyed the trips taken with the Fascist Youth groups.

 

Levi talks about reading Marx and Engels in Bolivia

Difficult to get pictures in the mirror-- Levi and Giacometti

There was a chair in a small section that was used for firing squad executions at the Martinetto shooting range.  After September 1943, when the Germans occupied Italy and established a puppet state, the Italian Social Republic, the shooting range was chosen as a place for the execution of death sentences.  Over sixty members of the Resistance movement were shot there.  After the war, the shooting range was dismantled.  The Martinetto was listed among the places of national interest and used as a shrine in memory of the executed.

The names of those who died at Martinetto were listed one by one above the chair.

As well as the paired interviews, there was one room with a multimedia table.  Each of the white interactive panels is dedicated to a specific place in Torino.   Each place offers testimonies and videos about events that took place at that location during the war.

Alonso activating one set of videos.

A section one end of the table dealt with the initial recruitment of Italians to work in Germany.

At the main train station in Torino

In 1941, people were more enthusiastic about working in Germany

Section on the uprising near the end of the war

Stories of torture and execution of Emanuele Arton, a Jewish resistance fighter

Many churches destroyed-- story of a wedding in a church that was bombed

More murders of resistance fighters

Liberation section-- Torino was liberated on April 28, 1945

Liberation

Calling people to come to Piazza Castello (the main large square) at Liberation

In the middle of the exhibit, there was a staircase down to an air raid shelter.  During WWII, more than 137 public air-raid shelters were built by the Municipality of Turin.  The building of private air raid shelters was also encouraged.  Torino was bombed extensively by the Allies in 1942-43 due to the number of industrial sites in the city and surrounding area.  The shelter in this building was discovered during restoration work for the museum.  It was built for the employees of the newspaper La Gazzetta del Popolo, which had its offices in the building as well as many people living in the neighbourhood. It was 12 metres underground and made up of four oval-shaped tunnels in reinforced concrete.  It could hold about 300 people at one time.  There were toilets and lighting in the shelter.

Alonso descending the steps to the shelter

One of the areas

Radio room

Life Under the Bombs had two interviews.  Emilio Jona, from a Jewish anti-fascist family, talked about being in the bomb shelters in Torino and then evacuating with his family to a small nearby town, which was not that affected by the war.  He was quite young at the time of the bombing of Torino in1942, and talked about making friends with other boys he might not have otherwise met, in the shelters.  Carmen Nanotti talked about the terror of the bombing and the fact that the shelters were not all that safe.   She noted that people were both angry with the Germans and the Allies, who were bombing the city.  She talking about the bombs not always reaching their intended targets and many innocent people perishing.

Carmen Nanotti and Emilio Jona talk about their experiences

Live in Liberty:

Marisa Scala had a harrowing story.  She was arrested as a partisan and ultimately deported to the Bolzano concentration camp where she was held until April 29, 1945.  She talked about coming back to Torino and borrowing an ambulance to bring people back from Bolzano.  One day she came across her brother, who weighed only 45 kilos and whom she did not recognize.  She managed to get him to a hospital, but he died 15 days later.

Hard to see Ms. Scala's face as there was a reflection.  Very moving testimony

Life in Liberty:

Blanca Guidetti Serra talking abut the fragility of democracy

 and women voting for the first time after the war.

Photo on the wall of celebrations in Torino's main square 

The last section dealt briefly with Life with the Constitution:  Yes to Freedom, Yes to democracy, Yes to equality, No to Violence.

Principles of the 1948 Constitution.  There was a series of mirrors, where visitors activated the reading of testimonies and passages regarding the articles of the Constitution.

We exited into a courtyard and saw a memorial to a number of Fiat workers killed during the war.

Another display in the courtyard

The museum was very informative and well-organized.  The interviews were riveting and the interactive displays generally worked well.  The air raid shelter gave one a sense of life during the bombing of Torino.  The fact that the exhibits end with a section on the Constitution and the fragility of democracy is also important, especially given the recent political changes in Italy.  Linking the past with the present was also done well.  We would definitely recommend a visit if one is visiting Torino.

There was an excellent quote in the brochure:

Memory, on which history draws and which it nourishes in return, seeks to save the past in order to serve the present and the future.  Let us act in such a way that collective memory may serve the liberation and not the enslavement of human beings.  Jacques Le Goff, Memory, from History and Memory.

We stopped at the apartment for a few minutes and then went for a coffee at the second location of Pastarell, only about a 10 minute walk away.  When we got there, all the tables were taken under the portico in front of the café.  We decided to have our espressos at the bar.  By the time we left, most the tables were empty.

Torino specialty cakes

Small location with seating under the portico

Tables under the Portico for Pastarell-- almost all emptied out by the time we left 

Walking back under the porticos-- definitely shelter from the rain

Large street near us with beautiful lamps and porticos.

We didn't really want to wander in the rain, even though it wasn't too cold.  We were both tired from staying up so late on Saturday night.  We rested and Alonso made a salmon dinner.  

Alonso with salmon dinner-- good to have a quiet evening!

Tomorrow we are going to the Egypt Museum, the second largest in the world, next to Cairo's!!