San Vittore Prison
The San Vittore prison is the central and most famous prison in the northern Italian city of Milan . During the German occupation it was used as a collection point for deportations. It is located in the city center in Piazza Filangeri . Like most Italian prisons, it has suffered from overcrowding since the 1970s.
history
The construction of the new prison was decided after the unification of Italy, along with other projects to improve Milan’s infrastructure during the period between the end of the Risorgimento and the drawing up of the 1889 Milan development plan. Its construction started in May 1872 on July 7, 1879 was Umberto I. opened. Until then, the prisoners were housed in buildings that were unsuitable for use as prisons, including the former convent of Sant'Antonio abate, the court palace and the former convent of San Vittore. For the construction of the new prison, the government bought land on the undeveloped outskirts (today's area between Corso Magenta and Porta Ticinese )
The architect Francesco Lucca was guided by Panopticon buildings from the 18th century and designed a star-shaped building with six cell wings, each with four floors. In the middle there is a prison chapel. The so-called "roses" for the courtyard walk were erected between the wings, divided into twenty sections, each of which was intended for a single inmate in order to hinder communication between the inmates. Towards Piazza Filangeri , management, administration and guard buildings and the director's apartment were built in a medieval style, with a separate women's wing. The original medieval style prison wall has been replaced by a more modern wall for security reasons. A number of opposition activists were imprisoned in San Vittore during fascism . In the last few decades, the dissolution of the outdated prison has been proposed repeatedly. In the 1980s, one of the largest prisons in Italy was built in Opera near Milan, but it has not been able to do without the capacities of San Vittore to this day.
The prison during the German occupation
During the Second World War (1943-1945) the prison fell under the jurisdiction of the German SS , which controlled and operated a wing. The events surrounding this notorious German wing are little documented by documents and rather by memories and testimonies of those who survived it. An official document from 1944 reads as follows:
“... In the prison there is a German wing and a 'Germanic' court. This does not judge all Italian citizens detained there according to Italian law, depending on the case, and therefore does not apply the penalties according to the code and procedural code of Italian criminal law or military criminal law. Usually imprisonment is imposed. The prisoners held in the German departments, over which the Italian authorities have no influence, are subject to 'Germanic' regulations, and they are headed by an SS sergeant who reports to the Hotel Regina, in which the SS command for Lombardy (Colonel Rauff ) has its seat. The prisoners held there, if they are innocent, are sent to work in Germany immediately after the verdict by the 'Germanic' court, provided they are physically able to do so. If they are severely impaired, they are sent to concentration camps. The legally convicted prisoners are also sent to work in Germany, as are the defendants who have been temporarily released and the prisoners whose detention has been ordered by the administrative authorities ”.
Luigi Borgomaneri, author of an essay about the Milan Gestapo chief Theo Saevecke and legal counsel in the trial against this former SS leader, provides various testimonies about what happened in San Vittorio between 1943 and 1945. Statements of many prisoners who entered and left the German wing can be found in the reception registers (lists of persons) that are kept in some archive facilities. Two of them can be found in the Milan State Archives, others in the Museo del Risorgimento in Milan and in the Istituto per la Storia dell'Età Contemporanea in Sesto San Giovanni .
From 1943 to 1945 the prison served as a collection camp for deportations of Jews and political prisoners. Between December 1943 and January 1945, 20 trains with over 1,200 prisoners left platform 21 at the Milano Centrale railway station, some directly, some via the transit camps in Fossoli and Bozen to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp or to the Bergen-Belsen , Ravensbrück or Flossenbürg concentration camps . In memory of the transports, the Holocaust memorial Memoriale della Shoah di Milano was inaugurated in the train station . One of the few Jewish prisoners from San Vittore who survived the Holocaust is the senator Liliana Segre for life .
Occupancy
The San Vittore Prison has a total capacity of 712 detention places. In 2012, the average occupancy was 1,600 inmates (around 60 percent of whom were foreigners) and was thus well above the regular inmate capacity. Repeated protests by prisoners and politicians as well as reprimands from the EU prompted the Italian government in 2013 to expand the country's prisoner capacity.
The prison in popular culture
As in many cities, the name of the prison is synonymous with the term prison in the Milanese dialect ("San Vitùr"). The building is the subject of several popular songs, including by Walter Valdi and the Gufi , and it is used in the songs " Canto di galera ”mentioned by the Amici del Vento ,“ Ma mi ”with the text by Giorgio Strehler and music by Fiorenzo Carpis , brought to life by Ornella Vanoni , and“ 40 pass ”by Davide van de Sfroos .
Between 2005 and 2009, the San Vittore Sing Sing music festival was held in San Vittore Prison.
The building appears in many scenes in the film “ Così è la vita ” (1998) by the comedian trio Aldo, Giovanni e Giacomo .
Prominent inmates
- Ezio Barbieri , former bandit from the Isola district, participant in the largest prisoner uprising in Italy
- Dante Bernamonti , Member of the Constituent Assembly
- Carlo Bianchi , Italian partisan, winner of the gold medal of the city of Milan
- Gaetano Bresci , anarchist and murderer of Umberto I, inmate from July 29 to November 5, 1900
- Mike Bongiorno , partisan, was imprisoned here for seven months in 1943 before he was transferred to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, later becoming a television presenter
- Fabrizio Corona , Italian TV presenter
- Mario Mascagni , mistakenly in place of his son
- Indro Montanelli , journalist and writer, shared a cell with Mike Bongiorno at the same time
- Giorgio Pisanò , politician, volunteer of the 10th MAS fleet, was a prisoner of war here in 1945
- Salvatore Riina , Italian mafia boss
- Aldo Spallicci , Italian politician
- Renato Vallanzasca , Italian criminal
Web links
- Entry on the website of the Italian Ministry of Justice (Italian)
- Aerial photo and brief description lombardiabeniculturali.it (Italian)
- Organization of the prison on autprol.it (Italian)
- From Internment to Deportation: Concentration Camps and Jews in Italy during World War II , Primo Levi Center
- Milan on gedenkorte-europa.eu, the homepage of Gedenkorte Europa 1939–1945
literature
Dario Venegoni: Men, women and children in the Bolzano transit camp . Bozen 2004, translated by Konrad Walter, p. 16 ff.
Individual evidence
- ↑ AS MI - Gabinetto di prefettura secondo versamento - Bag No. 396 - Volume Category 37: Document of November 2, 1944 "Notes for the Führer. Judicial prisons" signed by Mario Bassi.
- ↑ AS MI - Carceri giudiziarie di Milano - serie Registri di iscrizione dei detenuti - pezzi n.235 and 236.
- ^ Fondo Carte Panizza.
- ↑ Milan . on Memorial Sites Europe 1939-1945, accessed on April 6, 2017
- ^ Memoriale della Shoa di Milano. (pdf) In: wheremilan.com. Retrieved February 5, 2020 (Italian).
Coordinates: 45 ° 27 ′ 43 ″ N , 9 ° 9 ′ 56 ″ E