«FERRAMONTI VERGESSEN WIR NICHT»: HISTORICAL AND AESTHETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON MUSIC IN A FASCIST INTERNMENT CAMP 1940-1945

Ferramonti di Tarsia (Cosenza) was the largest fascist internment camp in Italy in terms of both its size and number of internees. Although its existence and the historical events concerning it - i.e. its founding preceding the Italian entry into the Second World War, its liberation on September 14, 1943 and definitive closure in 1945 after a period of British administration – represent an almost forgotten chapter of Italian history – considerable cultural and musical activities took place there. Being characterized by the presence of almost exclusively foreign prisoners, mostly Jews coming from Germany or countries under Nazi occupation (especially Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia), from the Balkans (significant presence of Croats and Serbs) and from the Italian possessions in the Mediterranean Sea (Rhodes and Benghazi), Ferramonti served as an absurd and random meeting place of cultures, languages, traditions and religions in the inaccessible Calabrian hinterland. Among the prisoners, often with a very high level of education, there were several professional musicians, such as Lav Mirski, Kurt Sonnenfeld, Isak Thaler, Paul Gorin, Oscar Klein, Leon Levitch, Ladislav Sternberg, etc. The extreme cultural diversity was reflected in the musical production and several performing activities accompanied everyday life in the camp: concerts and variety programs, which took place in a barrack serving as a theatre; the establishment of a choir that accompanied both Jewish, Catholic and Greek-Orthodox rituals (a unique case not only with regard to KZ-Musik); musical and general education for children attending the Lagerschule, just to mention few striking aspects. On the basis of personal and administrative sources and documents, this work focuses on the specific relationships between a non-lieu of deportation such as Ferramonti and the musical and human experience of interned musicians; the way in which detention and coexistence within the camp of people of various backgrounds who were forced to interact was indeed a crucial factor, not only for musical production but also for the survival and the future of most of the inmates. The different forms of Lagermusik are analyzed also in comparison with literary production from internment camps and through a philosophical perspective.