The Risiera di San Sabba
The only Nazi camp in Italy with a crematorium
In the industrial suburb of San Sabba, on the southern outskirts of Trieste, stands one of the most moving and important places of memory in Italy: the Risiera di San Sabba, a former rice-husking plant built at the end of the nineteenth century, which after 8 September 1943, when this area was annexed by Nazi Germany to the "Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland", was transformed by the SS into a police detention camp (Polizeihaftlager). It was used as a transit camp for Jews, partisans and political prisoners deported to Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald and other camps, and as a place of detention, torture and execution, especially of partisans and political opponents, Italians, Slovenes and Croats. It was the only Nazi camp in Italy equipped with a crematorium, which the Germans blew up before fleeing in April 1945 to hide their crimes. Thousands of people were killed here.
Declared a national monument in 1965, the Risiera was transformed into a museum and memorial by the architect Romano Boico, who created an austere and powerful path: one enters through a narrow, oppressive passage between high concrete walls, and then passes through the courtyard, where a steel plaque marks the footprint of the crematorium, the "cells of death", tiny rooms where prisoners awaited execution, and the rooms of the museum, with documents, photographs and testimonies. Visiting the Risiera is a deeply moving experience, essential for understanding the tragic history of Trieste and of the borderlands during the Second World War.
Tip: entry is free; allow at least an hour and visit with respect and in silence.
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