Three “stumbling stones” in Gallarate to remember three victims of Nazi-fascism

Three stolpestein (stumbling stones) to remember three citizens who were killed by the Nazi-fascists.

This is the project that the Anpi and the Italian Mazziniana Association have been working on for over a year and they have set up the path to lay, physically, the stones designed by the German artist Gunter Denmig.

The stones will remember Clara Pirani Cardosi and Lotte Froehlich Mazzucchelli, who were deported because they were Jewish, and Vittorio Arconti ,who was deported because he was a communist worker

“In the first days of October 2019 , during a meeting between the Italian Mazziniana Association sections of Gallarate and the Anpi, which were  respectively represented by Michele Rusca , Angelo Bruno Protasoni ,Michele Mascella and Guja Baldazzi ,the idea of proposing the laying of some ‘stumbling stones’ even in our city  was taking shape,” explained the announcement of Anpi and Ami.

“The stumbling stones , designed by the German artist Gunter Denmig, are small bronze artifacts like a cobblestone, intend to deposit a widespread memory of the citizens deported to the Nazi death camps in the urban and social fabric of European cities .The memory is perpetuated through the engraving of the personal data of the victim, restoring individuality to those that the Nazi wanted to reduce only to a number, and the laying of the work in significant sites, appropriately identified, such as the proximity to the last residence address. The passerby finding this ‘stumbling stone’ on their path and reading a name and a date, is invited to remember how certain persecutions and deportations did not happen only in distance places and to unknown people, but also here in our city, even to victims who the inhabitants knew and frequented in their daily life.”

The proposal was also brought verbally to the Councillor for Culture Massimo Palazzi,” arousing his interest and his encouragement, and so it was concretized in a formal request to authorization and sponsorship proposed to the two Associations to the Mayor Dr. Andrea Cassano. “A year later, the municipal authorization and the sponsorship have arrived, with the recognition of the high educational value of the initiative.

 

“The project, whose remarkable economic commitment will be entirely supported by the two Associations, can therefore finally start and it will be carried out, according to the artist’s availability, in the course of 2022. It will be concretized in the installation of three artifacts dedicated to three figures of particular symbolic value among the deportees from Gallarate: two fellow citizens who were persecuted because of their Jewish ancestry; Clara Pirani Cardosi, who was taken to Auschwitz and murdered in the August of 1944, and Lotte Froelich Mazzucchelli, who was arrested in Meina on September 15, 1943 and murdered during the homonymous massacre on September 22; and a courageous political opponent, Vittorio Arconti, who was a communist workman; he was taken from his workplace and deported first to Mauthausen, then to Gusen and finally he was murdered in Hartheim. “

 

In the latter case, that of Arconti, there is still an obstacle to overcome, because “the investigations to identify the place of his last residence in the city are still in progress”: Arconti was from Lonate Pozzolo, but lived in Gallarate. The aspect of the place of residence is important, because it further underlines the uniqueness of each of their lives, their presence in the cities, the fact that most of them were deported from one day to another, and they were torn away from their daily life.

“The European cities where you can meet the “stumbling stones” are many, most of them are in Germany, but there are some also in the Netherlands, Austria, in the Czech Republic and some of them are also in various Italian cities and regions (in the Province of Varese they are in Tradate and Saronno), Now Gallarate will join the many cities which, thanks to local initiatives, wanted to add an indelible mark to the memory of the victims of Nazi-fascism; the belief, as the letter in which the Municipality granted its patronage stated, is that “it represents at the same time a warning addressed to the new generations, so that they become bearers of the memory of these events and they actively work to prevent all this from happening again. ”

 

Translated by Mariachiara Bignoli and Elisabetta Ciocca

Reviewed by Prof. Robert Clarke