In Trieste, 15 new stumbling stones have been installed and for the first time in Italy, one has been dedicated to a deported Roma, on the joint initiative of the Union of Young Italian Jews and the Union of Romani Communities in Italy.

This is Romano Held, a 17-year-old musician deported to Dachau in 1944, freed at the end of the war but died shortly after due to the precarious health conditions resulting from the mistreatment suffered during his imprisonment. It should be noted that stumbling stones are usually placed in front of the deportee's home, but in Romano's case it was significantly chosen to place it in Piazza della Libertà in Trieste where today the wounds on the feet of migrants arriving from the Balkan route are treated.

The first pose was in honor of the teacher Maura Morpurgo, who was placed in front of the Divisione Julia institute in the presence of the authorities, including Rabbi Alexandre Meloni, Mayor Roberto Dipiazza, Police Commissioner Pietro Ostuni and the regional councilor for Local Authorities Pierpaolo Roberti. The initiative was realized thanks to the collaboration of the Municipality of Trieste, the authorization of the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscapes and with the participation of the Petrarca Classical Linguistic High School.

This type of commemoration was conceived by the artist Gunter Demnig, who personally carried out the installations, at the request of the individual clients, by the Jewish Community of Trieste with the help of various scholars, bodies, associations and research institutes, including the National Association of Ex-Deportees of Trieste and the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Centre of Milan.

Rabbi Meloni declared: “ With these stones, the desire to erase these names is being fought,” and then added, “More than the war, what scared me was the post-war period, because if we had Fascism and Nazism, it was because we had a difficult post-war period after the First World War .”

David Fifaco
Source: Radio Capodistria – 19/01/2023