A espiral de guerras de memorias: o Memorial italiano de Auschwitz

Carboni, Gregorio [UCL]

(eng) This text deals with the complex question posed by the Italian Auschwitz Memorial: work of deportees (architects BBPR, the writer-chemist Primo Levi), and anti-fascist activists (the musician Luigi Nono, the painter Pupino Samonà, among others), at the time threatened (and now moved to Italy) by the management of the former concentration camp. It describes the difficulties posed by two challenges: enabling a historic building to communicate the story of a painful past to future generations; respond to the challenge posed by critics with regard to its alleged museography inadequacy. The text describes possible solution to this problem: the new intervention must neither petrify the original structure, nor come up against it, but rather ensure that the two voices are harmonized. The Glossa XX1 project, as called, seeks to be informative without compromising the universal experience of the original Memorial. A memorial on such a delicate subject should tend to be a monument, not an exhibition. The main structure of the project will be the “gloss line”. The word “gloss” refers to notations on an original text. This “line” will be made up of railroad tracks melted at high temperatures, deformed and “stretched”, forming a plane on which a text will be written in low relief. This durable material resists weathering and fading, even if forgotten and abandoned, as the Memorial is today. It will constitute an elongated pride, like the stelae found in many streets in Italy, in memory of those who fought against Nazi-fascism. Recalling therefore the dead with dignity; but unlike the traditional stele, the “gloss line” will be extended, continuous and dynamic. It will also serve to hide all the utilitarian elements - currently on display - which spoil the simplicity of the exhibition route.