Villa Emma (Nonantola)

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Villa Emma in 1900

The Villa Emma is a building on Via Mavora, about two kilometers outside the Italian town of Nonantola near Modena .

history

The house was built in 1890 by the Modenese architect Vincenzo Maestri as a summer residence for the wife Emma Coen of the manufacturer Carlo Sacerdoti. In the years 1942/1943 Villa Emma was a refuge for 73 Jewish children from persecution by the National Socialists .

In the post-war period, the villa changed hands several times, and the interior was also rebuilt. As a result, the building fell into disrepair until it was restored according to the original plans in the 1980s. It is privately owned and can be rented for celebrations.

Refuge for Jewish children

Villa Emma under construction from 1942 (2019)
Some of the young people who escaped to Palestine via Villa Emma (1945)

Story of their escape

The children and their carers came from Poland , Yugoslavia , Hungary , Austria and Germany . Among the latter were fifteen Berlin children, most of whom came from the Scheunenviertel . With the help of Recha Freier , the director of the children and youth Alijah she founded in 1933 , they initially escaped to Zagreb on their five-year escape and suffering . Always with German and local Nazis on the neck, the escape continued via the hunting lodge of Lesno Brdo in Slovenia to Italy. In July 1942 the vacant Villa Emma was rented by the Jewish aid organization DELASEM ( Delegazione per l'Assistenta degli Emigranti Ebrei ). The children found refuge in the dilapidated building for about a year.

During that year they received school lessons under the careful guidance of Josef Indig from the socialist - Zionist youth organization Hashomer Hatzair . The girls and boys learned, among other things, New Hebrew and the basics of agriculture , because after the war their goals were to be kibbutzim in Palestine . The support of Italian Jewish organizations, the solidarity and sympathy of the population and the more liberal handling of Jewish legislation in Italy were helpful . Anti-Semitism , which was also growing in Italy, remained a latent, sometimes open threat locally. In addition, there was material need and the suffering of the children in the face of death news about parents and siblings.

The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had enacted appropriate Italian racial laws in autumn 1938, under the influence of anti-Jewish measures in Germany . The Italian Jews were largely disenfranchised; For example, from now on they were not allowed to attend public schools. Initially, however, there was no immediate mortal danger for the Jews.

After Mussolini's fall on July 25, 1943, German troops marched into Northern Italy on August 1 . But only after September 8, the cease-fire the Badoglio government was announced with the Allies, the situation came to a head. Those in charge of the villa sensed the danger and immediately looked around for new places of refuge. With the help of the doctor Giuseppe Moreali and the priest Arrigo Beccari, the majority of the Jewish children were hidden within a few hours in the abbey seminary and, in smaller parts, with local families. The initially rather indifferent or even negative locals had changed their attitude. Around 35 families, including farmers, basket weavers and shopkeepers, were involved in rescuing the children. Every useful shelter was used, such as haylofts, cow stalls, granaries, a storage room for tobacco and a wine cellar. When the German military police were led to the villa by the fascist party secretary from Nonantola on September 9, they found it empty.

Between October 6 and 13, 1943, the children were divided into three groups in order to escape to Switzerland on adventurous routes . After the war, they came over Barcelona to Palestine , which they reached on 29 May 1945th With the exception of one boy who was unable to flee to Switzerland due to illness and was deported to Auschwitz via the Fossoli transit camp on April 5, 1944 , all the children of Villa Emma survived. A DELASEM employee turned back at the border with Switzerland to help other Jews flee. He was later arrested by the fascists and also deported to Auschwitz.

Honoring helpers

For her selfless and courageous attitude of the then young priest Don Arrigo Beccari and the doctor Giuseppe Moreali in were "Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations " the memorial Yad Vashem honored.

filming

In 2016, directed by Nikolaus Leytner, the ORF / ARD television film Die Kinder der Villa Emma was made , which traces the escape of the group of Jewish children from Vienna to Palestine. Was shot u. a. at original locations in Nonantola.

Web links

literature

  • Klaus Voigt: Solidarity and help for Jews during the Nazi era. Volume 6. Villa Emma - Jewish children on the run 1940–1945 . Metropol, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-932482-87-5 . New edition ibid. 2016

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Villa Emma at gedenkorte-europa.eu, accessed on June 22, 2016
  2. ↑ Davanti a Villa Emma. In: concorsiawn.it. June 12, 2018, accessed March 5, 2020 (Italian).
  3. ↑ Villa Emma. In: villaemma.com. Retrieved March 5, 2020 (Italian).
  4. ↑ a b c d e Villa Emma as a shelter at tagesspiegel.de, accessed on June 22, 2016
  5. ↑ Klaus Voigt: Solidarity and help for Jews during the Nazi era. Volume 6. Villa Emma - Jewish children on the run 1940–1945 . Metropol, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-932482-87-5 , p. 127 f .
  6. ↑ a b Spontaneous help: Villa Emma at haGalil.com, accessed on June 26, 2016
  7. ^ Giuseppe Mayda: Storia della deportazione dall'Italia 1943–1945: Militari, ebrei e politici nei lager del Terzo Reich. Bollati Boringheri, Turin 2002, ISBN 88-339-1390-2 p. 77
  8. ↑ Storia. In: fondazionevillaemma.org. Retrieved March 5, 2020 (Italian).

Coordinates: 44 ° 40 ′ 30.6 ″  N , 11 ° 2 ′ 5.2 ″  E