Concentration Camp Rižarna, Trieste, Italy

A building with a high wall, very narrow passage and high walls. When one reaches the centre of the camp, a dramatic view opens up, revealing what in fact happened there. Where today there are marble tiles and a wall with fake doors — where the ashes of the camp prisoners are kept, if you turn towards the south, the silhouette of the chimney is visible, where the smoke of the burned people escaped. In each of the buildings, cells are preserved where the camp prisoners lived, some waiting for death and burning, others being sent to larger camps of death. Before the exit, there is the cell of death.

Here, 3,000 to 4,000 prisoners died. On 29 April 1945, the Nazis mined the crematorium.

The museum was opened on 24 April 1975.

LSI, 1: 148

"Rižarna" /Risiera di Trieste/ got its name from the former rice mill, which was located in the large dark buildings. The Germans, during the war, made the Rižarna the only destructive concentration camp (with a crematorium) in Italy. Rižarna swallowed hundreds of partisans, helpless prisoners, men and women, especially Slovenes, Croats and Jews. Today, Rižarna is an Italian national memorial (Monumento nazionale). Delegations from the Republic of Slovenia annually on 31 October pay tribute to the victims.

Source: Memorials in the Autonomous Region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Tomaž Pavšič, Trieste 1997