Colonia estiva di Saint-Cergues les Voirons
.jpg)
The Colonia estiva di Saint-Cergues les Voirons was a holiday home for the children of anti-fascist emigrants who were resident in the French department of Haute-Savoie and in Switzerland .
In 1933, in Saint-Cergues -les Voirons ( Haute-Savoie ), just a few kilometers from Switzerland , a holiday home for the children of anti-fascist emigrants in Geneva and Haute-Savoie was inaugurated, with the aim of preventing the Italian youth from being influenced by the To withdraw organs of the fascist regime abroad. From 1933 to 1939 the holiday home was under Italian management and took in mostly Italian children , and during the Spanish Civil War also Spanish children. Because of its special history, this institution is considered a unique achievement of Italian anti-fascism abroad.
Anti-fascists in Geneva and Haute-Savoie
Even before the establishment of the fascist dictatorship in Italy, many Italians lived in Geneva and in the neighboring Haute-Savoie. Political emigration began after 1922, with many refugees settling in and around Geneva in the following years. B. the journalist Carlo A Prato ( Annemasse ), the university professor Guglielmo Ferrero (Geneva), the republican Giuseppe Biasini (Annemasse), the lawyer Egidio Reale (Geneva). As the regime endeavored to exert political influence abroad through the diplomatic, consular, economic and cultural representations of the Kingdom of Italy and to control existing institutions, politically and culturally autonomous, anti-fascist institutions and initiatives emerged over the years .
Regime propaganda among children and adolescents
The opposition to the fascist regime expressed itself in many ways, e.g. B. by helping the newly arrived anti-fascists to find employment. Documents were obtained and the authorities intervened to reverse deportation orders. There were festivals, lecture evenings, and memorial events, and pamphlets, newspapers, and leaflets were issued. Collections were made for victims of political persecution , for prisoners or their wives.
Special attention was paid to the youth, the children of the anti-fascists, who had to be withdrawn from the regime's propaganda; they shouldn't have to resort to the offers of the fascist regime.
Creation of the Colonia estiva di Saint-Cergues les Voirons
.jpg)
The driving force behind the creation of a holiday colony for Italian children was the Republican Giuseppe Chiostergi , who had lived in Geneva with his family for a long time; he opened his house to anti-fascists of all stripes traveling through and offered protection and orientation to refugees who had opted for a precarious life in emigration and against adaptation and conformity. Chiostergi had many contacts in Geneva and in nearby France . In October 1928 a committee with representatives of numerous Italian associations and companies was set up and money was raised to purchase a plot of land of 8,000 m² in St. Cergues les Voirons. The village of Saint-Cergues was three kilometers from the Swiss border , opposite the municipality of Jussy in the canton of Geneva . Thereupon 625 bricklayers and craftsmen, most of them anarchists , built a stately children's holiday home in their free time and without pay. On July 9, 1933, the colonia estiva antifascista di Saint Cergues les Voirons was inaugurated. It offered space for at least 100 children.
In its early years, the colony primarily housed the sons and daughters of Italian anti-fascists resident in the region. Spanish children in need of rest were also admitted during the Spanish Civil War. The last holiday colonies under Italian management took place in July and August 1939. Occasionally children from Switzerland and France also took part in the holiday camp.
The Italian diplomatic and consular missions in France followed the activities in the anti-fascist émigré milieu very closely. The holiday colony in Saint Cergues was also perceived as a threat to its own desired ideological supremacy. In 1938 the Italian consulate in Chambéry , in a report to the Foreign Ministry in Rome, demanded the creation of additional vacation spots in the vacation colonies conforming to the regime.
The holiday home under the direction of Germaine Hommel
.jpg)
The Second World War heralded the end of the Italian holiday colony. Due to Italy's entry into the war and the defeat of France and the increased threat to the anti-fascist emigrants, a continuation was out of the question.
In the same year Germaine Hommel took over the management of the former Italian children's colony in Saint-Cergues-les-Voirons for the Swiss Working Group for War Damaged Children (SAK) (from 1942 Children's Aid of the Swiss Red Cross ). From now on the house was called "Les Feux follets"; it mostly took in Jewish children. During the Second World War, remote border villages gained an important strategic importance as escape routes for illegal border crossings. At the request of Rösli Näf , Germaine Hommel and her deputy Renée Farny agreed to hide children in the home and to help children (including young people at risk from the Château de la Hille colony ) and adults illegally cross the border to Switzerland to save from deportation to the extermination camps.
present
After the end of the war, the UFOVAL - Union française des oeuvres de vacances laïques - took over the former holiday home; later apartments were built there. The house is on the chemin de vers Bosson high above the village. A memorial plaque reminds of the history of the house.
On September 1, 2018, 85 years since the inauguration of the former colonie italienne , a commemoration ceremony took place in Saint-Cergues in the presence of the Mayor Gabriel Doublet and community representatives. An exhibition with original photos of the children's home was shown in the library. On October 12, 2019, the street chemin de vers Bosson was renamed chemin des Justes .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Fabio Montella, “La vera Italia è all'estero”. Esuli antifascisti a Ginevra e nell'Alta Savoia . In: Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea , N. 5, 4/2010
- ↑ Elena Fussi Chiostergi, Vittorio Parmentola, Giuseppe Chiostergi. Diario Garibaldino ed altri scritti e discorsi , Milano 1965 (Associazione Mazziniana Italiana), p. 196
- ↑ The numbers fluctuate between 100 (see Montella, footnotes 1 and 5) and 114 (see Chiostergi-Tüscher, footnote 4)
- ↑ Eugénie Chiostergi-Tüscher, L'antifascismo nell'immigrazione italiana a Ginevra , Geneva 1975 (unpublished manuscript), available on the website of the Italian consulate in Geneva ( http://www.consginevra.esteri.it/Consolato_Ginevra/Menu/Il_Consolato / Storia_presenza_italiana / Storia / )
- ^ Elle en a vu passer des enfants, la colonie italienne… . In: Le Dauphiné Libéré , November 6, 2014
- ↑ Une colonie Italienne chargée d'histoire. In: Le Dauphiné Libéré , September 4, 2018
- ^ Inauguration du chemin des Justes samedi 12 octobre. In: Le Dauphiné Libéré , October 7, 2019