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The exhibition "Ugo Carà" in Muggia (TS) will be inaugurated on Friday 31 January at 18:00 pm

Hidden Cities. Atlas of Refugee Camps in Trieste (1947-1975)

which can be visited from 1st to 16th February 2025 (from Thursday to Saturday 10am-12pm and 17pm-19pm, Sunday 10am-12pm – free entry).

This is a historical-documentary exhibition created by the CDM – Multimedia Documentation Centre of Julian, Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian culture together with the Provincial Committee of Trieste of the ANVGD – National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia, in collaboration with FederEsuli – Federation of Associations of Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian Exiles, the State Archives of Trieste, the Municipality of Muggia and the Department of Culture.

The curator of the exhibition is the historian from Muggia Francesco Fait, an independent researcher who has reached the intermediate stage of a project aimed at telling in a clear and rigorous way, but accessible to dissemination, the epic of the refugee camps in the Trieste area, from Punta Sottile in Muggia to the Villaggio del Pescatore in Duino: the research will be completed with the publication of a volume at the end of 2025.

With the bipartite note of 8 October 1953, the governments of the United States and Great Britain announced their intention to abandon Zone A of the never-formed Free Territory of Trieste to hand it over to the Italian government in an unspecified but near timeframe. The fate of Zone B was sealed and what until then had been a flow, even copious, became an ocean tide: thousands and thousands of Istrians left Zone B and reached Trieste, settling, in most cases, with relatives, friends, tenants, almost always in cramped and overcrowded spaces, often attics and cellars. A minority part, but still very large, was taken in charge by the authorities, first and foremost the Prefecture and the General Government Commissioner's Office where the CRP, the Refugee Collection Centre of Trieste, was established.

At their peak in 1956, there were approximately thirty centers in operation at the same time: public housing and schools taken away from their intended use, private homes and hotels requisitioned, disused factories, schools, barracks, shack camps and brick building camps. These were agglomerations of varying sizes, which especially in the case of shack camps took on the characteristics of actual cities, with internal roads, churches, schools, health services and commercial activities. Cities sometimes of considerable size, as in the case of Padriciano which exceeded 3.400 inhabitants. Hidden cities, although in many cases located right in the city center: both because they were usually banned to the people of Trieste, and because they were kept “secret” by the inhabitants themselves who, except in exceptional cases, did not speak of their status to anyone other than their companions in adventure (or misfortune).

The exhibition represents the intermediate stage of a research project that is at the same time a social activation project. It aims to tell in a clear and rigorous but accessible way the dramatic and in a certain sense glorious epic of the refugee camps in the Trieste area, from Punta Sottile to Muggia to the Villaggio del Pescatore in Duino.

This is a research in which “History” and “Memory” connect and intersect. “History” comes first, which is essential to focus on the theme through the traditional means of historical research, that is, predominantly, the study of bibliographical and especially documentary sources found in the various archives (State Archives of Trieste, Historical Archives of the Municipality of Trieste, Historical Archives of the Municipality of Muggia, Land Registry and Land Registry Office). And in this sense, the outcome of the research was the cataloguing of the highest possible number of structures and the cartographic restitution of the main and most representative ones.

And after the “History” the “Memory”, collected in a congruent number of interviews specifically conducted with the people who lived in the CRP structures, sometimes having been born there. In this case, these are essential testimonies, sources complementary to the archival ones but essential to restore the complexity of those events and those existences, certainly dramatic but not infrequently culminating in episodes and stories of brotherhood, friendship, conviviality and sociality.

The exhibition itinerary unfolds in sections.
The first, “Maps”, offers the main coordinates of the phenomenon, presents reproductions of documents from the time held by the State Archives of Trieste and the unpublished cartographic reconstructions produced for the occasion of four camps: Padriciano, Santa Croce, San Sabba and Noghere.
The second section, entitled “Routes”, offers excerpts from interviews with former refugees and their “vernacular” photos.
The third, “Approdi”, mentions, again thanks to sources from the State Archives of Trieste, the story of the agricultural “colonies” of Fossalon, San Quirino, Roveredo, Maniago, Bibione, where Istrian farmers were settled.
Finally, the fourth, “Boats without a rudder”, presents a small selection of requests and protests written in the camps and delivered to the authorities.

Also on display is a selection of films from the Istituto Luce, which provide basic information on the historical context and convey the climate of the time, and a further, invaluable source: amateur footage of the Silos taken by Giuseppe Fucci, the Silos' handyman from 1954 to 1957 and an amateur filmmaker.

The exhibition represents the intermediate phase of the project, whose final outcome is the publication of a volume that will hopefully take place at the end of 2025. This means that all interested parties still have time to participate in the project by being interviewed and making their “vernacular” photos available.

The following collateral events are planned during the exhibition:

• Saturday 8 February at 17pm and Sunday 9 February at 11am guided tour with the exhibition curator;
• Wednesday 12 February at 17.30 pm, extraordinary opening and conference Atlas of Julian Dalmatian refugee camps in Italy, Enrico Miletto, University of Turin

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info: Municipality of Muggia
cultureoffice@municipalitymuggia.trieste.it 
+39 040 3360340