Vittore Bocchetta

Vittore Bocchetta in October 2002

Vittore Bocchetta (born November 15, 1918 in Sassari , Sardinia ) is an Italian sculptor, painter and scientist. Bocchetta was a member of the Resistancea during World War II .

biography

Vittore Bocchetta was born the son of a military engineer. After his childhood in Sardinia, he and his family moved first to Bologna and then to Verona . Although he belonged to an artist family, his parents did not allow him to paint or draw, fearing he might be distracted from his education. After the early death of his father in 1935, he went back to Sardinia with his family. In 1938 he made in Cagliari his high school . He then returned to Verona and studied humanities and philosophy at the University of Florence , where he graduated in 1944. He earned his living as a private teacher and lecturer in the humanities at Ginnasio Maffei (1939) and at the Istituto alle Stimate (1942) in Verona.

Italian Resistance (1940-1945)

Because of his commitment to political freedoms, he was reported to the Italian authorities in 1941. Soon afterwards he was involved in anti-fascist underground activities. On September 9, 1943, one day after the Wehrmacht occupation of Verona , he contributed to the liberation of several hundred Italian soldiers from the Carlo Montanari barracks , where they had been held captive by the German occupiers. He was jailed for the first time in November 1943, along with his group of anti-fascist comrades. After his release in February 1944, he became an independent member of the local unit of the National Liberation Committee. During this time he graduated from Florence in May 1944. In July 1944 he was arrested again by the Italian fascist police. After two weeks of interrogation and torture, he was handed over to the SD , the SS intelligence service , and tortured again. After a short stay in the Bolzano transit camp , he was deported to the Flossenbürg concentration camp on September 4, 1944 , where he was registered under the number 21,631. On September 30, 1944, he was assigned to forced labor for the Hersbruck subcamp, where he had to take part in the construction of the Doggerwerk tunnel system in the nearby Houbirg mountain near Happurg . Within a few months he witnessed several of his comrades from Verona die. Thanks to a number of fortunate circumstances and his relatively young age, he managed to survive. When the US and British armed forces approached at the beginning of April 1945, the Hersbruck camp was "evacuated" by the Germans and the survivors had to go on so-called death marches towards southern Bavaria. During a stay near Schmidmühlen he managed to escape together with a deported French. In front of the fence of Stalag 383 , a camp for Allied prisoners of war in Hohenfels, he fell unconscious to the ground - unnoticed by the German guards at the time. A group of Allied prisoners took care of him and gave him food so that he slowly recovered. Liberated by the Americans in May 1945, he returned to Italy in June 1945 after a stay in Regensburg .

The post-war period (1945–1948)

When he returned to Italy after the war, he came into conflict with party politics, which criticized his decision to remain independent. He struggled to find a job, but in 1947 he was honored by the Italian government for the masterly musical adaptation of the medieval poem La passione di Cristo - the first work performed in the modern age at the Teatro Romano di Verona . However, he soon realized that the same fascists in different clothes were in power in Italy and left Italy in January 1949.

In Argentina and Venezuela (1949–1958)

He emigrated to Argentina and worked there as a correspondent for the Veronese newspaper L´Arena. In Buenos Aires he applied for a teaching position at the university there, but his references were not recognized. He was forced to take a job in a ceramics factory, where he discovered his talent as a sculptor. His sculptures were first exhibited in Quilmes in 1952 . He was awarded for Mother Earth , a project for a monument that was actually developed in Chicago twenty years later . His ceramic miniatures were exhibited and sold as collectibles at Harrods in Buenos Aires. The unstable political climate caused by the Perón regime forced him to close his own ceramics factory, which he had bought in Buenos Aires. He left Argentina in 1954.

He went to Caracas, Venezuela, where he made a living as a Latin teacher, painting murals and creating sketches and designs as well as projects that were realized as elements of the Paseo de los Illustres, a memorial park in Caracas. The political and social climate was not favorable under the dictatorship of Pérez Jiménez in Venezuela either. During a stay in the USA he heard about the coup in Venezuela in January 1958 and decided not to return to Caracas, where he left all his works.

In Chicago (1958–1986)

In the United States , destitute and lacking in English, he was forced to make a living drawing billboards. He hated this work and never signed it. After a while he became a Spanish teacher at Saint Xavier College in Chicago and later a lecturer in Italian at the University of Chicago , where he received his second doctorate in Romance languages ​​and literature in 1967. He then worked as a Spanish teacher at the University of Indiana . Most recently, he was Professor of Comparative Literature at Roosevelt University and Assistant Professor of Spanish Literature at Loyola University in Chicago.

Between 1963 and 1967 he was the author or co-author of Italian-English and Latin-English dictionaries. The Italian-English Lexicon was published in various editions and new editions until 1985.

He was also involved in the production of commercial statues again, but eventually turned to larger sculptures, such as B. Daedalus (1964), which he considered his first real work of art. He used various materials such as bronze, stainless steel, alabaster and marble. He poured his own bronzes and eventually developed a thin layer of bronze that encased a plastic core. In 1966 he taught Italian conversation on his 13-week television series When in Rome , which was broadcast by WTTW . Between 1969 and 1973 his work was exhibited in eight one-man shows in Detroit , New York, and more specifically at the John Hancock Center in Chicago, which was just opening at the time. In 1975, following an exhibition at the Public Library Cultural Center in Chicago, a selection of his works was auctioned off in the auditorium of the American Dental Association in Chicago for the benefit of the American Cancer Society .

With Editorial Gredos from Madrid between 1970 and 1976 he published two textbooks on Latin and the heyday of Spanish literature, as well as one on 20th century Western philosophy. His book Horacio en Villegas y en Fray Luis de León brought him an ad honorem membership in the Ovidium Society at the University of Bucharest in 1972 . Some of his sculptures can be found among the public monuments in Chicago, such as B. Mother Earth in the courtyard of the Chicago Public Library Cultural Center , The Egg Man and Man in the Sand, at 201 East Chestnut Street.

Return to Italy

Between 1986 and 1989 he spent a few months of the year in Verona working on literary and artistic projects with a view to "honing and defending his memoirs". The first work of this period is Cypress , a stainless steel obelisk over seven meters high . It is a memorial in memory of the six young heroes who attacked Verona prison on July 17, 1944 and liberated an important anti-fascist leader. The sculpture was inaugurated on April 25, 1988, during the official commemoration of the liberation of Italy from the fascists, exactly on the ground where the prison once stood. The following year (1989) the memorial to Father Chiot, the prison chaplain, was unveiled just across the street during the official April 25 celebrations.

In 1989 he settled permanently in Verona and published the first edition of his autobiography for the period 1940 to 1945, which he subsequently revised and corrected several times as new documents were discovered. He published the English translation in 1991 and the German translation in 2003. The book also depicts the plot of the documentary Spiriti liberi, 1941–1945, Ribelli a Verona , which was produced by the city of Verona and Against Forgetting ( Do not Forget ), Staged by Claus Dobberke and premiered on January 27, 2007, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the Potsdam Film Museum .

He made it his task to defend the memory of the resistance against fascism with speeches, meetings in schools, articles in newspapers and magazines. In 1995 he published an essay on the involvement of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry in Nazi Germany and that this remained largely unpunished in the Nuremberg trials from 1947 to 1948. Since 2001 he has traveled repeatedly to Germany, where a group of intellectuals founded the association Freundeskreis Vittore Bocchetta - Non Dimenticare , who supported his participation in various actions as witnesses and victims of the Nazi era. Between 2003 and 2006, his sculptures and paintings were shown in various German cities at a traveling exhibition. On May 8, 2007, he participated in the unveiling of his sculpture Ohne Namen (Without Name) on the site of part of the former concentration camp in Hersbruck, from where he could flee as if by a miracle 1945th

Exhibitions

• Quilmes (Buenos Aires), Argentina, Consejo Municipal, 1952.
• Caracas (Distrito Federal), Venezuela, Paseo de los Illustres, 1956.
• Detroit (Michigan), USA, Detroit Bank & Trust Company, 1969.
• Chicago, Illinois, USA, Upper Avenue National Bank, John Hancock Center, 1970.
• Chicago, Illinois, USA, J. Walter Thompson Company, John Hancock Center, 1970.
• Chicago, Illinois, USA, Aetna Bank, 1970.
• Chicago, Illinois, USA, John Hancock Center, 1971; 1973.
• Chicago, Illinois, USA, Siegel Galleries, 1971-1977.
• New York (New York), USA, Lynn Kottler Galleries, 1973.
• Chicago, Illinois, USA, Merrill Chase Galleries, 1974-1978; 1983; 1984.
• Chicago, Illinois, USA, Chicago Public Library Cultural Center, 1975.
• Verona, Italy, Palazzo della Ragione, 1991.
• Verona, Italy, Officina d´arte, corso Porta Borsari 17, 1995.
• Caprino Veronese (Verona), Italy, Villa Carlotti, 1995.
• Verona, Italy, Art Gallery Leonardo, 1996.
• Detmold (North Rhine-Westphalia), Germany, Lippische Landesbibliothek, 2003.
• Wolfsburg (Lower Saxony), Germany, Centro Italiano, 2004.
• Potsdam (Brandenburg), Germany, Old Town Hall, 2004.
• Lüdenscheid (North Rhine-Westphalia), Germany, Sparkasse, 2005.
• Kassel (Hessen), Germany, Justice Center, 2005.
• Weimar (Thuringia), Germany, Literaturhaus, 2006.
• Nuremberg (Bavaria), Germany, Documentation Center, 2011.

Public monuments

Vittore Bocchetta "Without a Name" in Hersbruck

• Narcissus and Black Hole, Chicago Public Library Cultural Center, Chicago, 1965.
• Painter and Potter, Ortho-Tain Inc., Bayamon, Puerto Rico, 1966.
• The Egg Man and Man in the Sand, 201 East Chestnut Street, Chicago, 1968.
• Mother Earth, Chicago Public Library Cultural Center, Chicago, 1971.
• Expansion, Household International Inc., Prospect Heights, Illinois, 1983.
• Cipresso, Chiesa degli Scalzi church, Verona, Italy, 1988.
• Don Chiot, in largo Don Chiot, Verona, Italy, 1989.
• Omaggio a Pertini, near Villa Carlotti, Caprino Veronese, Verona, Italy, 1995.
• Without a name, on the site of the former concentration camp in Hersbruck , Germany, 2007.

Publications

• New Century Vest-Pocket Italian Dictionary, Piscataway, NJ: New Century Publishers. 1963.
• Follett World-Wide Italian Dictionary, Chicago-New York: Follett Publishing. 1965.
• Follett World-Wide Latin Dictionary, Chicago: Follett Publishing. 1967.
• Horacio en Villegas y en Fray Luis de León. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. 1970.
• Circunstancialismo del siglo XX, Madrid: Editorial Gredos. 1972.
• Sannazaro en Garcilaso. Editorial Gredos. 1976. ISBN 8424934792 .
• Spettri scalzi della Bra. Verona-Flossenburg, anni 40… 45… Verona: Bertani Editore. 1989.
• Sinister. New York: Vantage Press. 1990. ISBN 0533084997 .
• Eye of the Eagle. New York: Vantage Press. 1991. ISBN 0533086876 .
• 1940–1945 Quinquennio Infame. Melegnano (Milan). 1995. ISBN 8886039441 .
• Aspirina per Hitler (Impunità de IG Farben). Melegnano (Milan): Montedit. 1995. ISBN 8886039352 .
• Norimberga 1946. Processo ai medici assassini. Verona. 2000.
• Those five damn years. From Verona to the Flossenbürg and Hersbruck concentration camps. Location (Germany): Verlag Hans Jacobs. 2003. ISBN 3-89918-118-2 .
• Paintings and sculptures. To the exhibition of the works of art Vittore Bocchetta. Location (Germany): Verlag Hans Jacobs. 2003. ISBN 3-89918-120-4 .

Documentaries

• Hersbruck Concentration Camp - and the Doggerwerk, staged by Gerhard Faul (2000)
• Speciale Deportazione, directed by Antonello Lai - Tele Costa Smeralda (2000)
• Testimonianze dai Lager, staged by Eraldo Mangano - Rai Educational (2002)
• Spiriti liberi, 1941–1945, Ribelli a Verona, staged by Stefano Paiusco - Comune di Verona (2004)
• Non dimenticare (Against Forgetting), staged by Claus Dobberke and Stefan Mehlhorn (2007)

literature

• Bocchetta, Vittore (1991). Eye of the Eagle. New York: Vantage Press. ISBN 0533086876 .
• Bocchetta, Vittore (1990). Sinister. New York: Vantage Press. ISBN 0533084997 .
• Bocchetta, Vittore (2003). Those five damn years. From Verona to the Flossenbürg and Hersbruck concentration camps. Hans Jacobs publishing house. ISBN 3-89918-118-2 .
• Silvestri, Giuseppe (1963). Albergo agli Scalzi. Vicenza (Italy): Neri Pozza.

Web links

www.non-dimenticare.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ His paternal grandfather, Vincenzo Bocchetta, was a romantic painter in the late 19th century.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Jeffrey N. Mina, Foreword in: Vittore Bocchetta, Sinister, New York, Vantage Press, 1990, pp.vii-xi. ISBN 0533084997 .
3. ↑ Vittore Bocchetta, Those Five Damned Years. From Verona to the Flossenbürg and Hersbruck concentration camps, Lage (Germany), Verlag Hans Jacobs, 2002, pp. 197-200. ISBN 3-89918-118-2 .
4. ^ ^{A b c d e} Vittore Bocchetta, Eye of the Eagle, New York, Vantage Press, 1991. ISBN 0533086876 .
5. ^ Giuseppe Silvestri, Albergo agli Scalzi, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 1963.
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Gerhard Faul, slave laborer for the final victory. Hersbruck Concentration Camp and the Dogger Armaments Project, Hersbruck (Germany), Hersbruck Concentration Camp Documentation Center, 2003. ISBN 3-00-011024-0 .
7. ↑ Marilyn Preston, "The exceptional Vittore Bocchetta," Chicago Today Magazine, Aug. 9, 1970.
8. ^ Chip Magnus, "Scarred, but not angry man," Chicago Sun-Times, May 20, 1975.
9. ↑ http://www.siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile/  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - SIRIS-Smithsonian Institution Research Information System website - Art Inventories Catalog.  
10. ↑ Vittore Bocchetta, 1940-1945 Quinquennio Infame, Melegnano (Milan), Montedit, 1995. ISBN 8886039441 .
11. ↑ Vittore Bocchetta, Spettri scalzi della Bra. Verona-Flossenburg, anni 40… 45…, Verona, Bertani Editore, 1989.
12. ↑ Vittore Bocchetta, Those Five Damned Years. From Verona to the Flossenbürg and Hersbruck concentration camps, Lage (Germany), Verlag Hans Jacobs, 2002. ISBN 3-89918-118-2 .
13. ↑ Vittore Bocchetta, Aspirina by Hitler (Impunità di IG Farben), Melegnano (Milan), Montedit, 1995. ISBN 8886039352
14. ↑ http://www.kz-hersbruck-info.de . Website of the memorial in Hersbruck.