On Thursday, May 8th, 2025, at 6:30 p.m., the Assembly of the Casa della Memoria di Urbisaglia ETS met online, a somewhat special assembly because it began as soon as the white smoke appeared in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome and ended a few moments before the words “Habemus Papam” resounded. The Assembly approved unanimously the 2024 Financial Statement and the moral report of the Board of Directors on the activity carried out in the year 2024, which we publish below.
Moral Report of the Board of Directors on the Activities carried out in 2024
The year began with the events for Holocaust Remembrance Day. On January 27, 2024, at the municipal theatre of Urbisaglia, we had the pleasure of hosting Sergio Roedner, son of Ernst Roedner who was interned in the Urbisaglia camp from 29 July 1940 to 2 April 1942.
In the morning, Roedner met with students from the upper secondary schools of Sarnano; then in the afternoon, he visited the Urbisaglia internment camp and took part in a public event at the Urbisaglia Municipal Theatre “In Urbisaglia in the footsteps of my father Ernst“
The event was preceded by a presentation from a group of students from the Liceo Artistico in Macerata, led by Prof. Caggiano and coordinated by Professors Mastrogiacomi and Calisti. They presented two short films on the Urbisaglia Internment Camp.
The first, titled “Letter from an Internee”, shows a young Rudolf Bratuz writing and describing to his daughter Damjana the places and activities of his internment.
The second, titled “Paper, Ashes and Memories”, highlights the bureaucratic procedures internees had to go through for daily necessities.
Both short films are published and available on the YouTube channel of the Casa della Memoria di Urbisaglia.
In his speech, Sergio Roedner recounted the experiences of his father Ernst and their family, as narrated in the book “Armin’s Watch. Europe, Two Wars, One Family” (Marinotti, 2002).
At the end of the event, the male section of the Equi-Voci Choir of Urbisaglia, directed by Maestro Cristina Picozzi, performed the song “Komm mein Schatz auf den Bocceplatz” (Come, My Love, to the Bocce Court), composed in the Urbisaglia camp in July 1941 by two internees: Egon Mosbach, a poet who wrote the lyrics, and Paul Schwenk, a cellist who composed the music and who, after the Liberation, was employed alongside Ernst Roedner at the company of another Urbisaglia internee, Emilio Winter.
On February 24, again at the Urbisaglia Municipal Theatre, a study day was held on “Jewish Internment in the Marche Region: Building a Path of History and Memory.”
The event, funded by the Marche Region as part of the “Jewish Itineraries in the Marche” project, was coordinated by journalists Piero Chinellato and Patrizia Ginobili.
After greetings from Prof. Lina Caraceni on behalf of the University of Macerata, the study day was opened by our scientific director, Prof. Angelo Ventrone, with a talk titled “The Enemy Figure and Internment Procedures,” followed by Costantino Di Sante from the University of Molise, who discussed open internment in the Marche, and Annalisa Cegna from the Historical Institute of Macerata, who analyzed the reality of female concentration camps.
In the afternoon, after greetings from the Rector of the University of Camerino, Graziano Leoni, there were presentations by Michele Loreti (a board member and computer science professor at the University of Camerino), who explained the developments of ourongoing digitization project; Adachiara Zevi (President of the Arte in Memoria Association), who spoke about the placement of “Stolpersteine”; Daniele Rossi of the University of Camerino and Riccardo Mecozzi, who presented a project that enables a virtual visit to the Servigliano Camp.
The intense afternoon ended with Luca Brignone, director of the Rai docufiction “For a New Tomorrow” starring Neri Marcorè, which tells the story of more than 70 foreign Jews in “open internment” in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana. The day before, the director had met with students from the Macerata Art School, the same students who produced the short films shown on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
All participants in the Study Day especially appreciated the visit to the monumental complex of the Abbey of Fiastra and the Bandini Palace, site of the Urbisaglia internment camp.
The event received excellent media coverage, with features on the regional news broadcast at 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM.
Also funded by the Marche Region through a proposal by the Municipality of Urbisaglia, within the framework of the “Jewish Itineraries in the Marche” project, we produced a brochure about the Urbisaglia camp—concise and informative, suitable for free distribution to visitors of the Abbey of Fiastra and Urbisaglia who request information about the internment camp.
On June 15–16, our Association was invited by the University of Camerino to participate in the first edition of the “Science Festival” event, held at the Abbey of Fiastra with over 1,500 participants.
Together with the University of Camerino, we organized a walk through the Abbey of Fiastra with historian Matteo Petracci, an interview with our President Giovanna Salvucci, and immersive VR experiences created by Prof. Daniele Rossi and Dr. Alessandro Olivieri from the University of Camerino’s School of Architecture and Design, reconstructing the Urbisaglia camp in a virtual environment.
In synergy with the Marche Journalists’ Association, we also held a roundtable on “Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities and Challenges Between Information, Science and Technology,” where Professors Michele Loreti and Andrea Polini also presented the digitization project of the Casa della Memoria di Urbisaglia.
On March 24, 1944, in Rome, the Fosse Ardeatine massacre occurred, where 335 men were killed by German troops, including lawyer Odoardo Della Torre, who had been interned at the Urbisaglia camp from June to October 1940.
On the 80th anniversary of the massacre, the Casa della Memoria di Urbisaglia, ANPI, the Historical Institute of Macerata, and the Giustiniani Bandini Foundation commemorated the tragic event with a conference on Friday, July 5, 2024, at the Abbey of Fiastra before a large, attentive, and at times emotional audience.
The conference “Le Fosse Ardeatine: 80 years after the massacre, in memory of Odoardo Della Torre” was chaired by Prof. Lina Caraceni, who introduced the work of Attilio Ascarelli, the forensic pathologist who taught at the University of Macerata in 1909 and led the team responsible for identifying the victims of the Fosse Ardeatine in June 1944.
The “Fosse Ardeatine” Collection by Attilio Ascarelli is preserved in Macerata, including documents and identification cards of victims, among them Odoardo Della Torre’s, housed at the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the University of Macerata.
The proceedings began with Prof. Angelo Ventrone, who gave a talk titled “The Death of Death: Nazi and Fascist Violence in World War II.”
Dr. Giovanna Salvucci attempted to reconstruct the biography of Odoardo Della Torre. After being interned in Urbisaglia, he was transferred to Camerino and then to Sant’Angelo in Vado.
Following the revocation of his internment, Della Torre returned to Rome where, on March 18, 1944, he was arrested by the SS after being denounced, and imprisoned in Regina Coeli prison awaiting transfer to Fossoli and subsequent deportation. On March 24, he was listed on Kappler’s “Judenlist” and executed with a gunshot to the back of the head alongside the other 334 victims of the Fosse Ardeatine massacre.
Prof. Mariano Cingolani (Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Macerata) explained the challenges of identifying victims in mass disasters and the significance of the work carried out by forensic physician Attilio Ascarelli and his team.
Dr. Lucrezia Boari (PhD in Forensic Sciences) specifically addressed the procedures adopted by Prof. Ascarelli, which allowed for the reliable identification of nearly all the victims of the Fosse Ardeatine massacre, including Odoardo Della Torre.
On July 13, we guided the nomadic editorial team of the “Nonturismo” guide to the Val di Fiastra through the former internment camp area. This guide book, which will be published by the end of the year, is based on collective storytelling and will narrate our towns, histories, and community in a unique way.
The Nonturismo guide to the Val di Fiastra is edited by Wu Ming 2, Anello Val di Fiastra, Sineglossa, Borgofuturo, and Inabita.
On October 9, journalist Giuseppe Giunta interviewed our member Alessandro Pantanetti for the program “ORIGINI,” broadcast on Rai1 and still available on RaiPlay. Pantanetti recounted the story of his grandfather Hermann Warski, interned at the Urbisaglia camp from July 25, 1940, to April 2, 1942, and of his mother Ruth, who escaped Nazi-Fascist roundups with her family and later married Augusto Pantanetti, captain of the Nicolò partisan group.
Throughout 2024, we continued work on the “Digitization and Memory” project, which will continue for at least the next two years.
We began designing the advanced metadata phase, which will implement the standard information required by the National Plan for the Digitization of Cultural Heritage. This will allow keyword searching of the Urbisaglia internment camp documents preserved at the Macerata State Archive.
In addition to operational meetings of the digitization team (including myself, Michele Loreti, Andrea Polini, and Emanuele Ferrarini), we involved Dr. Valentina Zega from Anmig, who is assisting in identifying the necessary research fields.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Macerata chapter of the National Association of War Invalids and Mutilated Veterans, now a valuable new member of our Association.
Once again this year, the members of the Casa della Memoria di Urbisaglia and those interested in our activities were kept informed through the urbisagliamemoria.org website, our social media channels, and the distribution of three newsletters (written in both Italian and English).
The website urbisagliamemoria.org was constantly updated with reports on various activities and new biographies of internees, particularly those of Pietro Renato Melli and Ivo Minerbi from Ferrara, curated by our member Sara Baretta, whom we thank for her work.
Writing the biographies of internees is of crucial importance and must be further developed in the coming years, as it will form the basis for the Museum of Memory to be hosted in the attic of Palazzo Giustiniani Bandini, especially since post-earthquake renovation work should begin shortly.
Having completed the moral report, I would like to thank the entire Board of Directors for their work and all members for supporting our Association’s activities. Thank you all!