Ferramonti di Tarsia Concentration Camp

Ferramonti opened in June 1940 and was the largest fascist concentration camp in Italy, the only example of a real camp built by the regime following the pronouncement of the racial laws. Italian and foreign Jews were interned there, as well as groups of people from enemy nations (Greeks, Slavs, Chinese), anti-fascists and political refugees. The camp, which in 1943 held 2,700 prisoners, covered an area of 16 hectares located near a railway station, and consisted of 92 barracks.

After the armistice, its management passed to the Allied Command, which then gave it to the former prisoners who had decided to continue living there. It was finally closed on 5^th December 1945.

After being abandoned in the following decades, it was only at the end of the 1980s that interest in the camp’s history was renewed thanks to the efforts of Carlo Spartaco Capogreco, and the Ferramonti International Foundation for Friendship Among Peoples was set up. In the 2000s, the Ferramonti di Tarsia Memorial Museum Foundation took charge of preserving the remains of the camp, and in 2004 it opened the exhibition rooms featuring documents, photographs and objects belonging to the prisoners. The last room was set up thanks to the voluntary contribution of Dina Smadar, an international artist and former camp prisoner. The complex also includes a library and an archive.

Photo: Ferramonti 1942. Credits: Fondazione Ferramonti Cosenza