Gonars concentration camp

The Gonars concentration camp was one of the several Italian concentration camps and it was established on February 23, 1942, near Gonars, Italy.

Many prisoners were transferred to this camp from another Italian concentration camp, the Rab concentration camp, which served as equivalent of the final solution in Mario Roatta's ethnic cleansing policy against ethnic Slovenes from the Italian-annexed Province of Ljubljana and Croats from Gorski Kotar, in accord with the racist 1920s speech by Benito Mussolini, along with other Italian war crimes committed on the Italian-annexed territories of Yugoslavia:

The first transport of 5,343 prisoners (1,643 of whom were children) arrived two days after its establishment, on February 23, 1942, from the Province of Ljubljana and from two other Italian concentration camps, the Rab camp and the camp at Monigo (near Treviso).

The camp was disbanded on September 8, 1943, immediately after the Italian armistice.

Only in 1973 was a memorial created by the sculptor Miodrag Živković at the town's cemetery. The remains of 453 Slovenian and Croatian victims were transferred into its two underground crypts. It is believed that at least 50 additional persons died in the camp due to starvation and torture. At least 93 children were killed at the camp, including those that had been transferred from the Rab concentration camp to Gonars.

Notable inmates

Slovenes

• Viktor Antolin, professor of philosophy (student/journalist at the time)
• France Balantič, poet
• France Bučar, lawyer, writer, and statesman in post-1991 Slovenia
• Lojze Bukovac, recipient of the Commemorative Medal of the Partisans of 1941, a writer
• Alojz Gradnik, poet
• Bogo Grafenauer, historian
• Zora Konjajev, pediatrician
• Boris Kraigher, politician
• Vasilij Melik, historian
• Frane Milčinski (pen name Ježek), a poet, actor, children's writer, and director
• Odon Peterka, poet
• Jakob SavinÅ¡ek, sculptor and poet
• Bojan Å tih, literary critic, essayist, and stage director
• Bogdana Stritar, opera singer
• AleÅ¡ Strojnik, engineer and educator
• Nada Vidmar, opera singer
• Nande Vidmar, painter
• Anton VratuÅ¡a, politician
• Vitomil Zupan, writer
• Tone Čufar, writer

Sources

• Alessandra Kersevan (2008): Lager italiani. Pulizia etnica e campi di concentramento fascisti per civili jugoslavi 1941–1943. Editore Nutrimenti,
• Alessandra Kersevan (2003): Un campo di concentramento fascista. Gonars 1942–1943., Kappa Vu Edizioni, Udine.
• Nadja Pahor Verri (1996): Oltre il filo : storia del campo di internamento di Gonars, 1941–1943, Arti Grafiche Friulane, Udine.
• Luca Baldissara, Paolo Pezzino (2004): Crimini e memorie di guerra: violenze contro le popolazioni e politiche del ricordo, L'Ancora del Mediterraneo.

Further reading

• Bregar, Ana (2013): Comparing situation at the Gonars Concentration Camp and the Rab Concentration Camp (In Slovene: "Primerjava taboriščnih razmer na Rabu in v Gonarsu"), Diploma thesis, Faculty of Arts, Department of history, University of Ljubljana.
• Megla, Maja (2012): Dr. Peter Starič, inženir elektronike, o svoji novi knjigi, ki izide septembra v angleÅ¡kem jeziku, Delo.
• Mihajlovič, NataÅ¡a (2012): Comparing the Gonars Concentration Camp and the Mauthausen Concentration Camp (In Slovene: "Primerjava koncentracijskih taborišč Gonars in Mauthausen"), Diploma thesis, Faculty of Arts, Department of history, University of Ljubljana.
• Å korjanec, Viljenka (2011): Italijanske metode pri izpustu iz koncentracijskih taborišč, Zveza zgodovinskih druÅ¡tev Slovenije, Ljubljana, Zgodovinski časopis, 1–2, pp 152–171

See also

• Rab concentration camp
• List of Italian concentration camps

References

External links

• Gonars Concentration Camp (EUROM)
• An article from Romacivica.net
• A website devoted to the Gonars Memorial
• Aerial view of the two sub-camps (white zones on the left): camp B is the vertical stripe just north of Gonars, camp A is the square zone north-west of the town