Risiera of San Sabba

(Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia)

Credits: Paul Richard Cecchini

Where are we?

We are at the Risiera of San Sabba

It was the only extermination camp with a crematorium built by the Nazis in occupied Italian territory. About 5,000 people died there, whose memory is collected in the museum created inside the ‘risiera’ (rice paddy).

Starting its life at the end of the 19^th century as a rice-processing factory, the rice mill in the San Sabba district became a Polizeihaftlager (police detention camp) during the German occupation of Italy. Hostages, Resistance fighters, political prisoners and Jews were tortured and killed in the camp, the only one in Italy to have its own crematorium. It was also a transit camp for Jews travelling to the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen camps and for political opponents sent to the Reich concentration camps. Finally, the Risiera was used to store items looted from Jewish communities and private individuals along the Adriatic coast.

Shortly before Liberation, the occupying German forces destroyed a large part of the complex in order to remove all traces of it. In April 1976, the trial of the camp bosses closed in Trieste. One defendant died before the end of the trial, and another was not extradited to Italy despite his conviction.

In 1965, the Risiera was given the status of National Monument. Parts of the building were reconstructed and it reopened as a municipal museum in 1975. There are memorial plaques in addition to the permanent exhibition, and it is now possible to visit the former crematorium and death cells.

USEFUL INFORMATION

Facility or museum: yes

Website: risierasansabba.it

Geographic location: Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia