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Revision as of 16:32, 10 April 2008 by AlasdairGreen27 (talk | contribs) (Added minor detail, refs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Rab concentration camp was one of 24 Italian concentration camps during World War II. It opened in July 1942 near the village of Kampor, on the Adriatic island of Rab. The camp was disbanded after the Italian capitulation in September 1943.
It held about 15,000 prisoners housed in tents, with Slovenians and Croats in one area and Jews in another. Approximately 1,400 prisoners died from starvation and inhospitable winter and summer weather conditions. Another 800 prisoners from Rab died later when they were relocated to other Italian concentration camps such as Gonars and Padova. Many prisoners who survived until September 1943 and were still strong enough to do so joined the Partisans and formed the Rab battalion which fought the Nazi German occupying forces.
In 1953, a memorial was built to Edvard Ravnikar's plans - ironically by prisoners of a communist camp from the nearby island of Goli Otok. The site has also been given explanatory memorial notices in Croatian, Slovene, English and Italian to inform visitors of the camp's history .
It has been said that "By the murderous standards of the second world war, Rab was only a footnote of evil" and due to Italian "amnesia" and their role on the Allied side in the last years of the World War II, not much is known about this camp outside the borders of the former Yugoslavia. In 2003 the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told Italian newspaper La Voce di Rimini that the fascist government of Benito Mussolini "never killed anyone" and "Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile" .
Survivors of the camp include Anton Vratuša, who went on to be Yugoslavia's ambassador at the United Nations and was Prime Minister of Slovenia (1978-80), and Elvira Kohn, who described her experiences at the camp in some detail .
References
- http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/rab-concentration-camp/
- Kampor 1942-1943: Hrvati, Slovenci i Zidovi u koncentracijskom logoru Kampor na otoku Rabu (Kampor 1942-1943: Croats, Slovenes, and Jews in the Kampor concentration camp on the island of Rab) (Rijeka: Adamic, 1998) See http://www.croatia.org/crown/articles/6324/1/E-Croatian-Partisans--Italian-ethnic-cleansing-of-Istria.html
- A photo of the camp: http://ww2panorama.org/images/96.jpg
- Kampor 1942-1943: Hrvati, Slovenci i Zidovi u koncentracijskom logoru Kampor na otoku Rabu (Kampor 1942-1943: Croats, Slovenes, and Jews in the Kampor concentration camp on the island of Rab) (Rijeka: Adamic, 1998) See http://www.croatia.org/crown/articles/6324/1/E-Croatian-Partisans--Italian-ethnic-cleansing-of-Istria.html
- http://emperors-clothes.com/croatia/rab.jpg
- TEKST 02
- The Croatian Island of Rab
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomazk/2283010087/
- ^ Survivors of war camp lament Italy's amnesia - International Herald Tribune
- Centropa
- http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/rab-concentration-camp/
Further reading
- http://motlc.learningcenter.wiesenthal.org/pages/t063/t06330.html
- Survivors of war camp lament Italy's amnesia
- Concentration camp memorial complex
- Milač, Metod M.: Resistance, imprisonment and forced labor : A Slovene student in World War II. ISBN 0-8204-5781-7
External links
- Oris, magazine for the architecture and culture A memorial plaque for the victims of fascism in Kampor on the island of Rab