Saturday we caught the bus again from Izola to Trieste and met Lidia and Enrico in the Piazza Ponterosso – which is a bit of a lame Piazza and not as beautiful as Piazza Unita – we bought food there which I will never forget for its god awfulness and cost; unfortunately this has summed up Trieste foe me. I want to be in love with it like other members of my family, to romanticize it and remember it fondly however; it just wasn’t that kind of experience for me.
The school where Nonna went and the Piazza Unita were special – meeting with Lidia and hanging out with Chiara and Enrico was amazing but Trieste is an old boring city with very little to do unless you live there. The cafes are poor quality and expensive and according to Enrico there is a real trend towards microwaving food – we had very poor food experiences there, thank goddess for the lovely dinners with Chira and Enrico – in comparison Venice and Rome have amazing, easy, cheap food. Enrico took us to see a Roman Empire amphitheatre which was pretty awesome, and then to San Sabba – a concentration camp.
This of course was an educational experience I much appreciate for many different reasons. First Trieste was I think the only concentration camp in Italy and it was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. My family connection to the camp is the smell. Enrico told me than when they were burning people in the gas ovens our grandmothers were playing in Trieste, in Servola right where it was all happening and could smell the burning bodies, they say it smelt like soap but not quite; they say it was an unpleasant smell, the burning, and they could see the smoke from the incinerator. What were my great grandparents thinking at this time? The camp was originally a rice husking factory constructed in 1898 and then used by the occupying German forces as a detention camp for Italian servicemen. It was designated as Stalag 339. You can read the history for yourself www.risierasansabba.it I know you are interested Niv, however, you may already know this info, having been there yourself!
I also just found out that in actual fact for the first three years of the war Trieste protected Jews and it was a safe harbor for them - then when the king signed against the Nazi's the Germans immediately took over Trieste and began committing atrocities by the thousands. So in making this decision the kind and fascists left Trieste and it's people to a terrible fate - they must have been so scared.
Then we met with Marina for the first time and Chiara made us dinner. Quinn want a turtle called Uga for his birthday – I don’t think I can pull it off, maybe Santa can?
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