 Good evening, Buenos Aires, everyone from the European Observatory of Memories and Remembrance and the Democratic Memory of the City Council of Barcelona. Every year we organize a small big event with respect to the historical processes and remembrance and memorial processes about the commemorations of the Holocaust victims in this year it's January 27th approximately, different activities. And with the event of the City Council and the European Observatory of Memory to turn this commitment, political and professional commitment that we all have in this memory space and area which is very important and original as the prison where we are right now in the heart of the Chamble neighborhood in Barcelona this year we wanted to make some considerations and small event thank you for your presence, difficult dates considering the physical participation and above all I'd like to thank the speakers we have here Sharon Rachel who came from Ferrara, Italy and Dr. Josep Calbet a doctor and a friend and colleague historian well we invited both of them because we wanted to connect this with the history of the Holocaust connected to the area of memory and remembrance for many years we have been working on trying to recuperate all these areas so that the transmission of history is not only done through interesting events but also in places of significance like this one here and since as you know that in our country in our cities in our states in our autonomous governments and some other countries it's it's hard to bet for the memorial history we wanted to combine a place which we found short ago with our colleagues from the Foundation that is the National Museum of Judaism and Shoah that is located in Ferrara and that is also located in the old prison of the city of Ferrara common prisoners and political prisoners like in Barcelona we are very interested in this and we also invited the invite Josep Calvet so that recently in his professional work we asked him to organize the part of history that was left aside and that's well that the the model of called model prison during World War two many prisoners stayed here who came well he'll tell us more about it but they came they arrived here escaping from Nazism during World War two but not only Jewish prisoners but also people from other areas from the allies group from the resistance from many different orders of life well this combination of Holocaust remembers day and the international perspective I thought was good and interesting to set up this conference and to coordinate this event around these topics we've no further do let me now give the floor to Sharon welcome she is a curator in the National Museum of Judaism and Shoah in Ferrara and also she coordinates the cultural spaces any non-covet well they had over a 50,000 visitors which is good for a city like Ferrara so there is a pedagogical and cultural interest and also an interesting interest which is very important for many her main interests is the transmission in the museum transmission of history and museum and patrimony in these spaces in these areas museology and the Jewish ceremonial art and Hebrew Italian history since the 16th century to the 18th century I'd like to thank her for for coming here in such complex days so her presence is very appreciated this transnational vision is also enriching our project of new future musicization of la model prison ball just a culvert very well known amongst us the doctor from the University of Lleida a big specialist that we have in Catalonia and Spain in Europe about the fact that during Franco's repression and World War two all these people that were refugees prisoners people that were escaping from Europe and wanted to cross the Pyrenees and and to you know save their lives and and live Europe that was in the middle of a terrible war at all levels and his last book is being sold right now it's a book that I would really like to recommend its second edition and would like to congratulate you and also this this international comparison of histories and of two twins that Nazism separated and that as he will tell you are deeply rooted to the land of these to these areas of history sort was a small prison as compared to this one from sort to Tel Aviv that's the name sort is the city that that was the first step of these arrests in the borders of this small you know capture or this big captures in in in World War two and they went to sort and then they were taken to Barcelona well I thought that these crossed histories were very interesting and Sharon obviously we are very interested in in in your project of museum project and how you turned the old prison eight in Ferrara into a memorial museum of Judaism and what show you have the floor one of the things that we have to do in today's reality first of all thank you very much for having me but also the museum here to Eurom it was really a pleasure for us it's very interesting actually to see another case of a prison that that has to be transformed or that that has a new life the case of Ferrara you will see it's an interesting case but also it's a little bit different from what you were working on here because we have not only the part of the show or not only the part of a memorial memory but also and mostly the reflection of the 2000 years of history of the Italian Jews so of course too much do you want me to yeah sorry the title is quite easy from prison to museum the name of the museum it's very long it is called Mace Museo Nazionale de Liberismo Italiano della Shoah or National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah for Friends Mace that's how we call him and this is actually the museum so if you will come today we hope you can come to Ferrara this is what you will see you will see something that is in the middle because right now the museum in his entirety it's not finished so we are talking about a work in progress and I think this is even more interesting because we don't have a set idea we don't know what the future will bring us we only know the architecture but we are still reflecting on how we want to build the inside of the museum if you see an image there's a huge building there where Mace is written and that's the building that was the prison so today the still existing buildings that were part of the prisons complex were are only two and before there were more there were three and these two existing buildings form half of the museum because we will have we don't know when but it will at the end we will have four buildings two pre-existing and two that are completely new I also brought two images from Ferrara why not that's where we are and the two images are actually from the Jewish history of Ferrara because the street that you see that's via Mazzini and via Mazzini was the artery of the ghetto of Ferrara actually before even before the ghetto was set the Jewish presence was already decided let's say they were already living in that area the door is the door of the facade of the synagogue of Ferrara inside this building there are actually more than one synagogue there are the Italian synagogue the German synagogue and the Faneze synagogue that it's a very small temple made by the Jews that came from Fano a town in Italy there was another synagogue the Spanish synagogue of course since we are here I have to cite it and it was because many of the Jews who were expelled from Spain came to Ferrara because the Duke of the city the Duke Duchy of Esther actually welcomed the city the Jews in the city they wanted these Spanish Jews because they saw a very interesting possibility of economic growth the Spanish and Portuguese Jews were merchants and this is what the Esther wanted so there there was a very interesting and very important Jewish community there Donna Gracia Nassi was one of the Jews who lived in Ferrara Amatoulou Zittano many Portuguese Jews that actually contributed very much to the culture of the city even of the city not only of Jewish side of the city but also to the milieu to the culture of Ferrara and here we go to our museum if you see this is only a rendering this is how things will be this is not the what we see right now a lot of green as before they were we were looking at renderings at how the model model of prison will be architects really like this idea of green in the city of renovation so actually this is something that we are supposed to have in our museum to not only that but maybe you see it there is a green line and that these are the walls of Ferrara because Ferrara it's a city that is surrounded by walls and this is very important for the history of the prison because that part where the prison was situated today it's where the museum is was a part of the city that was not there were no buildings there it was only for agriculture agricultural purposes so when the time came to find the new place for the prison of the city that's where they decided to to build the new prison and this is quite interesting actually because the prison changed the metal the city the surroundings of the city it it was interesting for me too while I was looking at the history of the prison to reread the things because it's quite interesting today we talk about renovation again it's something very interesting it's something that everyone wants to do in the city we talk about the new aspect of the cities but it was something that happened at the time and today we say that a prison can be a museum and this can change the face and also the spirit of a part of the city but at the time the prison changed the face and the spirit of a part of Ferrara and not in a bad way people came and decided to live in that part of the city because of the prison so it's quite interesting for for us today and this is how the prison was it's different from this one but in you will see another image inside it's quite it's quite striking because we see the same structure this was the outside and the structure was called a telegraph pole palo telegraphico so it's different from the panoptic structure what today survives it's what you see here the prison that was the male prison and that's also the part of the prison that was in its story the part of the prison where the political prisoners and the Jews were held and again this prison has a long life it didn't started for political purposes it was just a prison it actually was very ahead of its time when Italy changed and and when actually Italy started to exist after the unification the state also decided to change the radically change the system of prisons so in Ferrara that meant that the old prison that was inside the center of the city was dismantled and they had to find a new place a more human also space and in 1908 they started to build the prison it will open in 1912 and the newspapers of the city are quite interesting because they talk about these new prison and how the the cells are bigger and wider and better for the inmates of course the reality when they started to use it was a little bit different a cell that was supposed to be with talk about it before the cell that was to be was supposed to be a single inmate cell was used for more than one the history of this prison was a very long one because it stopped in 1992 so you see it's more than almost a hundred years of of use and in 19 from let's say 1940 mostly until 1945 and even 1946 they were political inmates why I say also 45 46 because after the war not only we have political inmates before the war but we have them after the war so the fascist actually and of course this is part of the Italian history after the war some of the fascist were taken to the local prison I will show you the inside as you see it's it's quite striking if you saw this prison I just sent a picture to one of my colleagues to the architect that actually she made her thesis on this prison and now she works with us at the museum so a lot of the things that I'm saying about the prison are thanks to her work Julia Gallerani so actually and she was also stricken by this this resemblance this is not what you see today again I'm showing you what was and then we'll see what it is I don't know if it was the right thing to do you will tell me but with this was the prison this was also something that we showed to the people because again the idea was that we had to bring the population of Ferrara to be part of our work so the ever-changing transformation of the building was presented to the public because the museum and having a national museum of Judaism in Ferrara maybe could be a little bit strange so we wanted the people from Ferrara from the city to be part of this project I don't know if you can recognize him if many Italians knew who he was in Ferrara everyone knows who he is this is Giorgio Bassani and also the other one is Matilde Bassani they're not related the name is the same Giorgio Bassani is the writer who wrote the Garden of the Finzi Contini and he was actually a political inmate in the prison so he was in the prison not because he was a Jew but because he was fighting against the fascist regime in Ferrara the Ferrara actually was a very fascist city and what is interesting is at the time even the mayor of the city the fascist mayor of the city was a Jew so we have this very peculiar story yes of a Jewish person that was actually part of the fascist regime on the other side we have some Jews like Matilde Bassani and Giorgio Bassani that were actually very active against fascism I didn't include a picture but Al Dacosta was a teacher in Ferrara and today there is a school an elementary school and a primary school on her name and she was actually the one who was leading this group of anti-fascists in Ferrara she was also held prisoner in the prison of Pia Pia in Japan and we call it like that we don't call it our museum some of the Jews not many of the Jews actually we were talking about it before but this is something very important some of the Jews who were deported from Ferrara went through the prison but it was only a small part most of them were held in the Yamatsini in this complex that I showed you before and also in the Kazerma and now I don't remember the name in English sorry in in the Abel Bevilacqua and I will change pace completely and here we come to the idea of the museum so the idea of the museum is not so young because we are in 2022 so 20 years past in 2003 the first law passed and the first law was about the museum of the show but today the name of the museum is quite different it's not only a museum of the show it's the museum the National Museum of Italian Judaism so how did we came there at the beginning there was an idea of a memorial but it was a memorial mostly like a statue in so it was I hope you can excuse the world it's almost a passive way to interact about memory and the show it was not an active part so this first idea developed and became the idea of a museum of the show that Italy at the time didn't have and then the idea was quite nice let's say quite interesting quite important so what happened during 2003 and 2006 Rome came forward and they said we want to have a museum of the show a tool of course Rome is a very significant part of the terrible story of the show in Italy so what happened in a very Italian way or Salomonic way since we are talking about Jews we have two museums of the show one in Ferrara that has also the let's say active part of the Jews in Italy 2000 years of history and the museum of the show in Rome that is only dedicated to the memory of the show so these came through with another law on the 27th December of 2006 and this is quite important because by law we are recognized from the ministry so actually the Ministry of Culture is our again past me the definition main sponsor 2007 what happens because the idea was before we even chose the place they chose the place I wasn't even there I was studying for my MA on museology the idea was where do we put this museum and they talked about it a lot and there was a space in Ferrara that was completely neglected the prison stopped working in 1992 and from there on it there was nothing the building was there the buildings were there no one was there only people it was actually it's a very sad part of the story because there were people living in there squatting let's say so poor family was we're living in this terrible state in the in the prison but they decided again renovation with we're talking about rethinking about an area of the city and this is how they thought they will rethink about this area of Ferrara and the prison will have to change from a place that is closed so a place where ideas are not welcome but also the debate with the outside world it's not welcome when you put someone in prison you can talk a lot about the idea of prison like some a place where you change for the better someone but let's face it it's not not like that you take them away from society so the idea was that with the museum we will have this place that was taking away ideas from societies and people from society then we have a museum that is just the opposite because the museum is not a memorial and of course a museum is not a prison a museum is something it's a space but it's also a place that is supposed to have a dialogue with people with the outside world if not we're not doing our job well so this is why they decided to have the museum in in the prison this is what was going on at the time so you see it's it's of course everything is left to decay here you see some of the structures that you even can recognize from here this is something that actually was written on the walls we tried to to go around and make pictures of what was left it was not easy because for a small period of time the music the prison became a set for television and there was a very I don't know if you know here but in Italy it's everyone knows it Gomorrah yes the series of for the TV series for Gomorrah was shot in our museum or in the former prison because it was the only prison that was still a prison but not used as such and actually for us it it it was a little bit of a problem because it left us with things that were made for the TV and we didn't know what was pre-existing or what was made for for the TV so we're going on and in 2001 there was the international competition for the architecture design studio arco and scape one and they won with the project that had to incorporate a part of the pre-existing buildings you see a and see are the ones that were part of the museum and then we have other two buildings B and D that are the completely new ones those are also the buildings that we are expecting waiting for so today we only have A and C and these are some images from the works inside so you see it's already changing his face and this is another thing this is what happened from the outside where you see the rubble that's where there was another building that building was taken down because during time it changed so much inside that there was no historic interest so they just decided to discard it and also the prison stopped working because it was in a terrible shape and condition so that building but is no longer there this is what went on inside you see changing again you see be yours a lot of white no this sense of opening this is actually something that it's not from the first project for the museum but we realized we people that worked in the museum that the buildings won't come so quickly so we had this huge space between the two buildings and what should we do so we decided to do something to play with the space and to have a garden so here you have the phases of the garden and that's how it is right now so in these last minutes because I don't want to take away time and also there's time for questions so if you still have questions about the museums you can ask them I will show you a little bit of what we do this is an installation this is the garden the garden is actually called of questions because the idea is that you don't know everything about Judaism so you can be wrong but if you fail you still can learn something new so the idea is that we have a space for failure that is not something that in society we usually have and actually at the museum that's what we have a space for failure that's the part for the first exhibition again the idea is a museum that is a work in progress so we don't have the building be the building be is supposed to host the permanent exhibition so what should we do stop not reflect not open to the public we decided that we will open to the public building see through many temporary exhibitions and then through the temporary exhibitions we will build the permanent exhibition so today that's what people see this was also part of the first exhibition these area of the museum was actually the upper floor second floor where the multiple cells where you have to think about it was supposed to be around to host something like 15 people but of course it came to have something like 40 50 people all in one room with one bathroom toilet in the middle it was really horrible so today you don't see it it's unrecognizable from what it was before this is Titus because in our 2000 years we also talk about the destruction of Jerusalem and this is again Titus but in another way this is the arch of Titus and also a replica an architectural replica of the Colosseum again what we're trying to do is to present the history of Italy and its Jews so of course this is the history of Italy the Colosseum everybody knows the Colosseum not everyone knows about the Jewish history of the Colosseum this is a catacomb and this is the part of the Renaissance Renaissance the second exhibition was completely focused on the Renaissance and it was actually interesting because we had something about the exile from Spain this is the moment where Italian Judaism changes completely because the people from Spain and Portugal come to Italy so there's a strong number of Jews that come from Italy and things change we see it in the art in the culture it's very interesting a small part of the actual exhibition four people created the exhibition one of them is me but most importantly Andrei Contessa Simonetta della Settado former director and Lotta Ferrara dell'uberty the idea is that this is an exhibition that talks about and reflects about identity we start in the 1500 and we arrive until the 1900 so it's a long period of time and we reflect about identity this is something that actually it's interesting if we talk about the prisons because the idea of identity is what is an identity when I'm forced to be someone the Jews during the ghetto era knew with what they were also because of the things that they could not be they were segregated they were taken apart from society they were something different and what also is me when I'm not when I'm free to be me after the emancipation the Jews were like everyone else so the idea is the reflection of these two ways to express the same identity again these I wanted to show you this because maybe here you can see these was a cell this is the floor plan so what you see where the the images this amazing painting this was one of the cells so what they did is actually they united all the cells there is a corridor in the middle that it still uses a corridor but we portion it every time with the elements of architecture because we really need the space to do the exhibitions but if you think about the images that you saw before of the prison it's not that it's not quickly relatable to the same idea of prison these are very interesting textiles but I won't go on there there is a part of the 1900 and I will stop with 1938 humanity denied this is something about the shore but not only so it starts with the racial laws that of course in Italy as are very important and a part of the history of Italy we cannot skip on them and they start with the idea of again what it means not to be citizens like everyone else what it means to lose everything the space in in in society this part is also of course on deportation this is a site specific work of art by an Israeli artist his name is Danny Caravan of course I don't have to explain to you what it means but again the idea is we don't have a lot of space but we still want to talk about difficult topics and we don't want to do it in a rushed way so it's important to maintain an historical perspective it's very important to show things that are true I think that today we it's it's not always like that so the forthcoming images I will move quite quickly you will see what we do it's quite quite like the new life that they want to give to this prison we have to use the spaces so what we do we also have the cinema again this is a way to bring back this space for the city this was a space that no one could enter we are trying to do something different we work with different categories this is for people who don't see we also work with the sound impaired people we have a bookshop like every museum a library a teaching hall but also we work a lot like everyone on the online offer today we have a lot of online activities actually one of the most important activities that we will do this year on the for the day of remembrance will be on Monday the 31 and we will have an online activity for something like 400 schools that registered from everywhere in Italy and in any way we couldn't have even before corona we couldn't have the space for 400 classes and every class is around 20 people so actually this was really interesting and I think that these these was an opportunity that we had to reflect on the museum is in Ferrara Ferrara is not a big town it's next to Bologna in the north of Italy what happens with the schools in Sicily what happens with schools in Calabria in the south of Italy the online activities are there to near the gap summer at Mace I wanted to show you to to close these are the renderings again you see people who knows cars if this what will be but this is what is supposed to be the Corpo D building D that will completely change the entrance of the museum on the other side the buildings are being built right now building B D sorry the buildings are in charge of the ministry so there is a foundation for the everyday life of the museum but the ministry is in charge of the architectural part so we can say it's not us it's them we'll never say something like that we want to maintain a very nice relationship with the ministry so this is the other side of the building as you see trees water who knows we'll see what will happen this is what we have today again thank you but if you have other questions I'm here this is a small Bassani it's one of the activities actually that we made we we work a lot with schools it's it's very important for us to have schools and bring them and we try to have different activities for every type of age not everyone can work on the show this is also very important for us small children are not in the age to to work on the show but there are other ways to to talk with them and to make them part of this part of the history of Ferrara Dan thank you thank you very much Sharon point interesting project let's not criticize the authorities that they have to put money on this kind of project well we hope one day we will have this kind of activities also inside this prison now we had Joseph Colgate historian he will talk to us about the history not that just the place but something that has the right relation with this space as I said before evening everyone thank you for being here I'd like to thank Jordi and the rest of the team for inviting me in this very interesting session at model prison Barcelona's Jordi said I will make a more historical intervention about the history of this place after this very interesting presentation delivered by Sharon on museology as Jordi just said before we're speaking about model prison man's penitentiary from 1904 to 2017 including many prisoners of different regions countries political and common prisoners if we make a balance of this prison and the prisoners that stayed here under the political events and social struggles well we have the tragic the so-called tragic week unism of the 1920s civil war then pretty much a bit as dictatorship the civil war post-war Franco's dictatorship the struggle for democracy and in this historical account oftentimes we skip the years of the Second World War as Jordi he said seven before between 1939 and 1945 during these times during these years the war was full of political prisoners connected to this role of this prison as repression against Republicans and and anti-franco's adepts but we had hundreds of people who had a right to Spain to Catalonia escaping from World War two and escaping from Nazism this is what I would like to talk about I will make a first historical context of the issue and then I will tell you some examples of people or groups of people who visited to this prison in the six years that lasted World War two after some witnesses that were here and that reflected with and through their memories and interviews this period of times months the monthly state in this prison well it's read their well-known that in 1939 1945 80,000 people and stayed here and 85,000 were arrested by civil war by the army from the or by the police in Spain most of these 50 80,000 people and 85,000 people were right to Spain on their cover through the Pyrenees in Girona's Pyrenee or or a Western Pyrenee they didn't have any documents they didn't have any visas or passports who are these people well quickly let me tell you that well we have to talk about the different categories of people that arrived to Catalonia and the war in prison in this prison well basically the six big groups that I mentioned to you includes French young people who decided to escape from the occupied France after June 1940 after but after the goals the goals general speech asking young people in the military age to go to the north of Africa to together there and fight against the Nazis in spring of 1943 another wave of young French people escaped from France that took all the young French men to work to Germany they were trying to escape these conditions these are the two important moments of escape of these French people that represent 60 65% of the total of people that arrived to Spain and well secondly we have the Jews Jews that as you know escaped from the Nazi prosecution in Germany in 1933 and then in Austria and that little by little was increased with the occupation of half Europe by the Nazi army Poland Belgium the Netherlands and then France their final goal was to escape from from Europe to escape from prosecution there's a big paradox you know fugitives from Nazism came to Spain that was you know ruled by by dictatorship so they were such good friends with for the Nazis well then we have people of countries natives of countries that were or had been attacked by the Nazis Poland etc people that skate with the intention of reaching the north of Africa some of them and then others to the UK to continue fighting pilots aviation pilots were part of this group Canadian and North American and British they were important after 1943 and 1944 it's so moments at the beginning of of World War two 1939 1940 mid-1941 some politicians from the occupied countries Belgium the Netherlands Poland well crossed the the border Spain to in order to go back to the UK or to go to the Belgian Congo to recreate their governments and you know build a new government in excellent the final group that less studied that arrived here in the fall of 1944 in 1945 and further on till the beginning of the 1950s some Nazi German border guards that people that were in the in the borders German Nazis that were escaping from the Europe that was in the hands of the Allies and they were trying to find refuge in the in Franco Spain that was the last group of refugees that escaped other countries of Europe that arrived Spain this was this is the human landscape of the the revisions that escaped from World War two here we have some pictures on the left you have the two Belgian politicians Spankampier lot that escaped in 1940s the Spanish government one didn't let him cross through the border officially and they did it in the clandestine and they went through Portugal and they went back to the UK on the right we have the pilot of the Allied aviation General Jigger he crossed from in 1944 through the Pyrenees in Lleida and we have many names and pictures of Jewish people families women children men that's at one moment in history during this nearly six years used the Pyrenees between France and Dora and Spain to escape from the Nazi the Nazi oppression this is a map difficult to to probably to read which explains the the main escape routes from France to Catalonia we have two points of concentration in France to lose on the one hand and Perpignan on the other and Dora and Perpignan people that were trying to escape to Girona and Barcelona as the place of concentration as I will tell you both for those that arrived in the clandestine tea arrived here in to the Barcelona as well as those that were arrested for one reason or the other Barcelona was the place of concentration as I said before the immense majority of these ravages were arrested mainly by the civil guard of Guardia Civil the Pyrenees had become in the main concern for Franco's government they were not thinking about the South but the North so the logical effects of World War II any attempt of invasion of Spain by some of the armies that was taking part actively part in the war and also because in the south of France there were hundreds of thousands of Republican refugees that well you know were very active against the dictatorship so there was a fear with what these people could do therefore this border was watched by these Guardia Civil as well as by the police and the Spanish intelligence services that were watching what was happening in the borders and any one who was anyone who was moving in the border in one or the other version was controlled they were trying to make this border impermeable but even in spite of all this some of the refugees were able to reach Barcelona without any big problems why Barcelona bought because in person and they had the Allied consulates the British North American Belgian Dutch consulates and they could help them reach their goal which was to go to the north of Africa that the UK or in the case of Jews to escape towards the Americas which was their main interest the American consulate for young French people like the French list say or the French Institute that they became involved in Barcelona with that dissidents with dissidents and then trying to help people that were escaping from the government of the ship but in these places included the prison model prison which was the place of concentration of these people that were arrested in the Pyrenees or that were arrested from the Pyrenees to the city of Barcelona what was the treatment received by these people from the Spanish government well they were considered as political prisoners and they were well sent to the civil governor in each province then they had prisons in the capital of each province Lleida or Girona in this case besides Barcelona it was the regular process after 1943 from 1939 to 1940 but in each province they had their own their own set of rules the civil government of Lleida did not act the same as in Girona or the head of the Guardia Civil in Villa acted the same way as in La Junquera there were some differences with respect to the orders received but the unified regulation arrived from Spain there was a commission of the ministries and foreign affairs and the army after 1943 but in spite of it all if we check all the documents there were differences in the way they treated prisoners in each province with respect to legislation they determined that young men between 18 and 40 years of age were considered men in military age they were not sent therefore to civil prisons but they were sent to concentration camps at the beginning of the 1940s some of the concentration camps that had been created during the civil war still survived I speak about the Cerbera concentration camp the concentration camp at Reus another concentration camp in Irún in an old weaver's manufacturing plant and the Ebro concentration camp in the province of Burgos therefore the role of the model prison was to you know receive these prisoners that were arrested in the province of Girona and to be sent to Miranda Debro concentration camp so there were well in 1941 finally Miranda Debro was the area where these people that were arrested in the military age between 18 and 40 years of age will came to the model prison for some days or some weeks before they were transferred to Miranda Debro the same happened to with prisoners arrested in Lleida they normally went to the capital first and from Lleida they went to Saragotho, Logroño or Miranda De Ebro in the case of Girona all of them were sent to Barcelona and to this prison they were taken by train from Figueres from Porto Bol and they reached the Barcelona train station and then to prison this prison here where we are now the concentration camp lasted for many years during the civil war since in 1937 to 1947 ten years first it hosted republicans then international brigadists and refugees that arrived between 1939 to 1944 and then from 1944 all the German Nazis that were seeking for Frank's protection the tragic between Barcelona and Miranda Debro was different some well there were two routes the first one went through Tarragona and Caspé two routes following the train rails there was a stop at the rail concentration camp in a second round which was which was a train going between Barcelona train station to Cerver and then stopping at Cerver so Cerver and rails were right in the middle of this tragic train tragic train trip that lasted up to four days considering this global and quick overview of the procedure let me focus on the model prison and the role it had as the place to of incarceration of these people that had arrived to Spain it's worth mentioning that not only this prison received and hosted these refugees but also there were other places other penitentiaries there were some people were taken to the castle of Montjuic was one of them some militaries of high ranking that were arrested in the Pyrenees of Ziruna to be later on sent to Miranda Debro concentration camp and after the protests of the different allied diplomatic legations well a small concentration of refugees camp was prepared in Tarragona at Lama de Tarragona other refugees were taken to Palau the palace of the missions in Montjuic and the San Luis convent and another area in Pabla now between 1930 and 1940 1941 all or or nearly all prisoners came to the prison the deep model prison San Luis was closed at 1930 1942 and they stopped receiving the second world war two refugees in 1941 who were these foreigners these refugees that came to Barcelona model prison well most of all were most of them for for Jews of different nationalities Polish Germans Austrians and Dutch Belgian other than these Jews will had Polish Belgian British some French and Dutch prison non-Jewish prisoners and now I will try to give you some witnesses some people that explained their their stay in the model prison of Barcelona with their memoirs or books or interviews that some historians recorded this slide includes four places where refugees were concentrated in the upper left we have the small prison of sort sort which well now is a small very small museum that explains what what happened in night after the year 2007 on the right upper right what was the Girona provincial Girona prison small convent in south on the bottom left the server prison building known as the cement we had the concentration camp and then on the same university which was used as prisoners camp and on the right bottom right we have the concentration camp at Miranda de Var in Burgos in this camp that was active for 10 years as I said the Jews were the most numerous number of prisoners but we don't have many witnesses many histories we have more Belgian witnesses than Jewish witnesses at least is what I found this is an example of the Jews that came here warner Varas warned in Poland in 1919 and who died in the US in the year 2008 he was transferred to Barcelona before he went to Mirand de Vero he published his memoirs first in German and they later on were translated into Spanish the book was called fugitive in Rososala made a very nice preface and Varas wrote about his stay at Barcelona model prison I don't remember he says many days 10,000 prisoners little space it was hot and we were tired physically and emotionally we only stayed there one night in this case his day was very very quick another Jewish that came to the model Salomon Berger he had a first shop in Belgium he was arrested in Putsch-Serdin in October 1942 with his wife and his son his wife was taken to Caldas de Malavella spa with his son and he ended up in a model prison to be later on sent to Mirand de Vero concentration camp another Jewish in 1944 Jakob Bernstein he was a tailor he was arrested in Malieu with a hundred a thousand a hundred Franks he was also accused of smuggling international currency so this this smuggling was usually dealt with by a Madrid judge and that lengthened the the state of prisoners of these Jewish prisoners that have held international currency other Jewish prisoners were retained in Barcelona people who had been able to make it to Barcelona without any further problems but once they were here police that watched all hotels all hostels arrested them at that moment everything was highly controlled train station all train stations all train stations had police people even trains from coming from Girona from and resin from Lleida to Barcelona also had in each train a policeman that requested documents from people one of the people arrested was Jakob Neumann born in Poland in 1884 and after leaving Spain he migrated to the US and finally to Israel where he passed away in 1982 Jakob right Spain in October 1942 through Andorra he had escaped from a ranzia in the south of France in the month of August of that year his wife had been arrested in that raid she ended up in Auschwitz where she passed away and Jakob was able to make it to Andorra and with the help of a guide he reached Barcelona he was arrested by the secret police of Spain in the room of the same hotel where he was staying and he was taken to La Modella prison he stayed here for some weeks he was taken to Madrid and the judge told them to well sentenced him to to be taken to a middle level concentration camp another example of Jews that stated La Modella prison for some time it's worth mentioning that other than Jews we had some of the people that had helped them escape escape from the Nazi control people escaped through the support of the networks of evasion and the guides created by the allies secret services or Jewish associations and they counted on the collaboration of people of Spanish people or Catalan people who knew the Pyrenees very well and who were in charge of taking them from the border to Barcelona two of these people who were part of the one of the of the main networks of evasion that was led by Francisco Pontan and an Aragonese anarchist it was created in this this network was created in Duluc and they stayed in Bartholona prison after being arrested and after you know leaving these people joined Catalonia on the left from Pagliades from Diaposiv born in 1913 he was one of the main guides of Pontan he was arrested in Barcelona in 1942 after he transferred the group of plane pilots to the British consulate and after meeting Elisrael Melis who was another anarchist who later on was found that he was a confidant of police and then well at the bar he was arrested by two policemen and later on he was taken to the modeled prison but he escaped he had escaped from Cádiz prison and he's later on escaped from Jaide prison and he's one of the the people that ended up in in model prison who was able to to escape another anarchist Mr. Laurea and he he had the record of having helped cross the biggest group of refugees from World War II that I know 62 people he helped across the Pyrenees in 1944 till Valdarán from the Lleida Pyrenees to Valdarán it was an odyssey a big odyssey two people died in this well when Flor del Barbera came to Barcelona living his people he wanted to go back to France he was arrested in Puig so that he was taken to Girona he was tortured and he was sent to a model prison of Barcelona where he stayed for one year till he was released another guide whose picture I don't have Valeria Pinto from Couvelles born in 1884 and 95 he worked for the british consulate he was agent 402 he had taken hundreds of allied airplane pilots from taken from different places when his network fell he was arrested the Valeria Pinto was taken to model to model prison as well out of the Jews as I said before there is a big amount of non-jewish people who also passed by this prison a british Michael Franken arrested in july 1942 in Figueras he was in this prison for two weeks before he went to Miranda de Ebro polish people a noble from also from from belgium he was an officer from the army he it was Etienne his father was an anti-communist and very close to franco's or he sympathized with franco's dictatorship his son was arrested he was a minister he was a lieutenant and he was arrested together with other three colleagues and he was taken to the model prison in Barcelona he knew about his father's sympathies he wrote a letter to the ministry uh how do the minister of well mr. Ramon sir Ramon and he uh wrote a letter asking him to be released because of his father's contacts and in his father he said i'm writing on my knees in a cell of the bursal on a prison in spite of this ter linden was taken to Miranda de Ebro concentration camp another virgin eric lomba came to bursal on a handcuff from figueras and then watched by two worthy of the villains in the month of june 1942 he was expected he was waiting for the belgium council he was taking to these to our prison and his description is very eloquent he talked about this prison he said my cell was dirty we weren't given anything to sleep on the first dinner was a dirty soup we ate it inside of a pot i missed my tobacco i cannot sleep well the day after we were our heads were shaved that was he what he was writing he said also there's a group of 50 belgium people some of them have been here for a month others for two months and here's another person that has been here for even more than that another belgium and let me finish with this renek rins born in 1921 he explained his stay in barcelona and in our prison he walked from the train station to the to the city by foot there was a still tower with different galleries and work but you could find the different cells we had people that were about to be shot to death people had fought against franco and usually at night we could hear the steps of the guards that were going to take these people to be shot to death other belgium military lieutenant simonet we were imprisoned he said in barcelona for a few weeks this prison was a model at the beginning who expected just one occupant for per cell but at that time there were 15 people in each cell i could go on for many more accounts of polish french people other people from belgium who explained their experience and their stay at model prison but to finish then let me go back to the jews two more examples the imprisonment of jews was not exclusive to those that had crossed the period is trying to find a refuge in the in franco- spain some jews who were had been born too in in barcelona were imprisoned in this prison we don't really know why it was evident that there was a big anti-semitist feeling in franco's government the orthodox fascists admire hidler then they justified the slaughter of the jewish people and there was a favorite expression by franco talking about the franks mason jewish and communist conspiracy against the dictatorship they connected jews and two two soviets and and even serrano sugnier said that the jews jewism is the new enemy of the new spain well two examples as i said mr joseph alamos i guess on the right mr uh had was born in turkey he worked as a salesperson and he created a small shop and on 25th of december 1940 he was arrested by police in the street marquis campo de salado he was arrested at the model prison he was sent to miranda de bro later on to another concentration club at nanklades de la oca and he was released and he was forced to leave spain together with his wife and his son they went back to the old palestine under the british government and he is and and the president of the israelian community in barcelona et mundo grunewam he had been the president of the israelian community in barcelona he was a person who had a right to barcelona in 1911 he had become a spanish national in 1930 and the fact of being a jew added to his quality of mason he was a frank mason so with these two premises he was arrested he was young he stayed in barcelona for 12 years and one day of imprisonment and these uh is what i wanted to explain to to you to all of you this the the protagonism of the model prison in these years of the world war two together with the problems uh that the republican prisoners had i wanted to offer some of the witnesses so that well you could learn more about the protagonism of model prison as a place of imprisonment of these refugees of world war two and that's it one history is explained about this prisoner of this prison during this last 130 years of life maybe we could include a chapter explaining what happened during these years of war thank you thank you thank you very much joseph we also hope that you will also collaborate with us so you will be less you will be able to tell us a story as much as we want to do it it's a bit cold but let's open the q and a session so if you have any question for charon oh for joseph feel free to ask and please use the microphone so we can hear you from the booth your presentation and thank you charon as uh i'm a little bit ashamed to say that as an italian i was not aware of the museum in ferrara and i was there like three times i have friends but i never had the chance to to visit it so i'm looking forward to it um but my question was i'm not sure if i understood well but uh you said in a given moment that the ministry of culture is somehow your sponsor so i guess that in somehow the ministry of culture like a big institution with like a capital letter is setting some boundaries in terms of content you might have to display i'm not sure if that's the case and uh if if it is the case you were talking about involving actively the community and the citizenship in being part of like creating the memory of of your museum so my question was like which tools do you use which like which ways you have to tackle the participation of citizens in creating parts of the contents of the museum if thank you happy happy to know that there are italians that actually it's funny because uh last week we did a seminar with ucl with the university of london and um there were italians who participated that didn't knew about the museum that they came to see the museum thanks to this seminar so i'm quite happy that we are continuing this um following up we actually have a very uh nice um um report um link let's say to the ministry of culture we don't have any problems actually the idea is that the the interesting thing is the museum has a board so it's a foundation it's run by a foundation one of the members of the board is a representative of the of the ministry of culture one is the representative of the Emilia Romagna region where Ferrara is one of the city and one of the union of jewish communities italian uh jewish communities no one tells us what to say no one tells us what to do of course there are a little bit of uh from time to time um they want us to uh talk a little bit more about this or that but they don't influence the narrative of the museum this is very important because it's not that um not everyone has this luxury what the ministry has at what is for for us italian we we have a very peculiar way of run things in culture because we have a lot of laws and this is why the museum actually is the way it is because we have a very strict way if something is believed to be or considered to be by the italian government uh and ministry of culture a cultural heritage uh site or cultural heritage uh object you cannot do whatever you want to do with it so this is why we have two of the uh uh buildings pre-existing buildings because those were the one that were um considered a cultural heritage by the ministry so i hope i replied to the question that yes we are free actually we decide what to do and it's very endearing actually because we are it's it's not every day that you can decide what you want to say we are bind bound by a mission so we have to work on uh not only on things of the past but we are supposed to work on things of the future or the present so we are supposed to have a very active role uh in um um in the italian society how we do it it's not easy sometimes uh we we try to work uh with the communities we are actually starting to work with as i said with uh hearing impaired communities we welcome people from uh a hearing impaired uh association and they came and and looked at everything that we've done the text mostly the text and it was so interesting because this is not the first thing that we think about when uh uh when you have people that don't hear that the text will be the first thing that they have very peculiar ways of uh uh reading that are not what we think about uh but also one thing that we tried to do at the beginning because we were fresh and young we opened a um a wall uh to our public so they wanted to ask us questions right on the wall and and we will reply and it was very important for us because most of the time this was the perception and actually the the questions uh reinforced this perception people were thinking thinking about the jews in the past so how do the jews lived how do the jews were marrying uh but there are jews in italy today and we are there to talk about them also to prove this is not to prove but to tell the story of a minority that still is thriving in italy and still is part of the uh social uh cultural uh italian world so i think that was one of the most challenging experiences because we we didn't have any control in the public we knew that maybe some not so nice questions could be made but actually everyone really respected the museum space someone uh uh did some um interesting geographics let's say uh on the walls but uh that was the the the only thing that there was no anti-semitic uh writings on the wall we had a lot of schools but still everyone well behaved and it was really important because the garden actually stems from a question that we had on the wall because the question was in italy and it's um i don't know if i can uh say it well in english but it was like um why the jews damn why do the jews don't eat pork and it was damn damn because the and we know that the the girl it was a little girl a child that wrote it and ferrara is a place like barcelona where uh pork is a very substantial part of of the yes of the culture of food it's really really important and it to us it was so interesting because we have this small this little girl that for her it's quite it's impossible to understand and it's even taking something from me not to eat pork and then that's why we developed the garden of question because it's all around the how do we just eat and what they can eat what they can mix what not so this is our way to try to involve communities it's not easy i will say it as i said to them i always say it we are seven people in the offices of the museum so uh we are starting to grow we hope to welcome new colleagues uh it would be amazing for the museums but for us too and we still have a lot to do and to grow but that that was one of the examples and when you come to ferrara tell tell me because i will be very happy to have you there if there are no further questions we will call it a day thank you very much Sharon thank you joseph and we invite you to follow the online and on site activities of the year on thank you very much for coming here to the model thank you