“Ferramonti, a parallel story”: an exhibition and a (exciting) show to remember the decidedly special affair of what was the only truly functional Italian concentration camp in Tarsia, in the province of Cosenza.
A project by the pianist Laura Vergallo Levi (assisted for the exhibition by Paolo Guido Bassi and for the texts by Sofia Weck, staged together with the other musicians Claudio Giacomazzi, Francesco Vittorio Grigolo), who started from the Teatro Menotti and who will turn for the exhibition part will shoot Various schools in Milan, starting with the Parini high school.
A special story because Ferramonti, despite the shameful absurdity of racial laws, was a story of tolerance (thanks to the director Paolo Salvatore and his successors, and to the Calabrian marshal Gaetano Marrari) and friendship, indeed of fraternity, with the local population , which for this can be called “parallel”.
It was initially reserved for non -Italian Jews who had been attracted to the peninsula, when Italy seemed to have a non -persecutory attitude. In those wooden constructions since 1940 a sort of assembly democracy was created, where the presence of doctors stood out, who took care of the inhabitants of the area, and of musicians of absolute value, including the trumpeter Oscar Klein, the conductor Lav Mircoki , the pianists Sigbert Steinfeld and Kurt Sonnenfeld, the singer Paolo Gorin. Although deprived of physical freedom, they exercised that of art and Ferramonti organized shows, called “colored evenings”, of which, between classic and jazz, there was a box of manuscript scores.
“Starting from a historical research of these events – explains Laura Vergallo Levi – we have proposed in the theater a” musical story “that could stimulate reflections, highlighting the various aspects that the material that came to us testifies to us: the compositions, the atmospheres , the musical choices and the related programs, the words and emotions of the diaries, the daily life of the internees ». The show, in a Menotti Sold Out Theater, aroused intense emotions, grown even more thanks to the direct testimony of Ruth Foà, who was interned in Ferramonti as a child.
The exhibition tells the story of the concentration camp in Calabria through 14 panels accompanied by documents and photos, partly unpublished, which manage to postpone a clear image of life in the field, also based on assemblies that gave a role to the various geographical origins and also to non -Jewish internees.
“Although subjected to a precarious life condition, the prisoners of Ferramonti -adds Vergallo Levi -, thanks to a decent detention regime, they managed to do things impossible to imagine in other similar contexts. For example, they were able to manage a school, organize concerts, treat citizens of neighboring countries, play football and set up synagogues ». An example of generous humanity that should be followed today where it continues to shoot unnecessarily.