Stumbling blocks in Piedmont

Stumbling blocks in memory of the Meina massacre

The stumbling blocks in Piedmont give an overview of the stumbling blocks that remind of the fate of the people in the Italian region of Piedmont who were murdered, deported, expelled or driven to suicide by the German National Socialists . The stumbling blocks were laid by Gunter Demnig , usually before the victim's last self-chosen place of residence.

Demnig has been laying stumbling blocks in Piedmont on a regular basis since January 2015. The term stumbling blocks means in Italian: pietre d'inciampo .

Meina massacre

The Lake Maggiore massacres were the first mass murders of Jews in Italy . They took place the night before the establishment of the Italian Social Republic , the puppet regime of Hitler's Germany. Members of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler murdered 50 Jews on the Piedmontese side of Lake Maggiore , including 16 guests at the Meina Hotel . The 3rd, 4th and 5th companies of the battalion had identified a number of civilians as people of Jewish descent with the help of lists from the municipal authorities and arrested them on September 15, 1943 in a coordinated action in Meina, Arona , Baveno , Mergozzo and Orta San Giulio .

Explanatory stone in Meina

Between September 19 and 22, 1943, a meeting of the company commanders took place in Baveno under the direction of Hauptsturmführer Hans Friedrich Röhwer, who was in charge of the troop unit. It was decided to kill the captured Jews and throw their bodies into Lake Maggiore. On the night of September 22nd to 23rd, a firing squad picked up four of the victims held in Meina in a truck on three trips and shot them on a forest path. A second squad rowed the bodies out into the lake and sank them after they had weighed them down with iron and rocks. At least three bodies were floating on the lake the next day, were brought ashore and seen by many residents. The following night the last four of the 16 Jewish hotel guests were shot and disposed of in the same way. In Stresa at least four and in Baveno at least two of the Jews imprisoned were murdered in this way. There were also murders of Jews in spatial and temporal context, in September in Novara and in October in Intra . The total number of victims was 56.

In 1968 the Osnabrück Regional Court sentenced a total of five people for these crimes. In 1970 the Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgments due to the statute of limitations.

Turin

The Turin Stumbling Stone Project is supported by a wide range of organizations, including the Museo diffuso della Resistenza, della Deportazione, della Guerra, dei Diritti e della Libertà , the Jewish community of Turin , the Resistenza Institute , the ANED (National Association of Deportees) and the Goethe Institute . So far, a total of 85 memorial stones have been laid in Turin for people who were deported and murdered for political or racist reasons.

Stumbling blocks

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  Casale Monferrato
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  Meina
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  Turin
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  Turin

According to Demnig's website, the stumbling blocks were laid in Turin on January 10 and 11, 2015, January 16, 2016 and January 17 and 18, 2017, in Meina on January 10 and August 30, 2015, in Stresa on January 17, 2016, in Casale Monferrato on January 17, 2016 and on January 16, 2017, in Moncalieri on January 17 and in Avigliana on January 18, 2017. The following city names are linked to the respective stumbling block list.

Avigliana , 3 stumbling blocks Casale Monferrato , 4 stumbling blocks Meina , 17 stumbling blocks

Moncalieri , 1 stumbling block Stresa , 1 stumbling block Turin , 85 stumbling blocks

Memorial stones

Even before Demnig laid the first stumbling blocks in Italy in 2010, the first 21 “Traces of Remembrance” were laid on January 26, 2009 in the Piedmontese city of Saluzzo , which are imitations of the stumbling blocks . In front of the earlier homes of 21 murdered Jews, 12 cm × 12 cm brass plates were set into the floor. The plates were designed by school classes as part of the local project “Tracce del ricordo” (Traces of Memory). The text always begins with “Qui abitava” (lived here), followed by name, place of death, age and the reason for the deportation: “Perché Ebreo / a” (because he / she was a Jew).

swell

• Turin on gedenkorte-europa.eu, the homepage of Gedenkorte Europa 1939–1945 , accessed on December 21, 2016
• L'Eco delle Valli : “Pietre d'inciampo”, il paese ricorda i suoi deportati , January 1, 2014
• Stolpersteine.eu , Demnig's website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Website of the project “Memorial Sites Europe” of the Study Group German Resistance 1939–1945 for the place Saluzzo
2. ↑ Resistancea - Resistance in Italy: Stumbling Stone Walk through Saluzzo , February 6, 2014.

Web links

Commons : Stumbling Blocks in Piedmont  - Collection of Images