 Ferramonti Camp was
located in a malaria-infested region in the Cosenza
province in the region of Calabria across from
Sicily. This was the largest of the 15 internment
camps established by order of Mussolini between June and
September of 1940. In this huge camp, the family
was provided a small room just for themselves.
There was no comparison between the German and Italian
camps; in Italy, families lived together and there was at
least a modicum of social welfare. There was no
official schooling and, although there was an
“unofficial” school, Alex and Vera didn’t
participate, feeling that the subject matter was too
remedial. Vera spent much of her time with her
father and his friends. The camp inmates were some
of the top intellects of Europe.Between June of 1940 and September of 1943,
there were 3,823 Jewish internees at Ferramonti.
The commandant was assisted by 100 military
personnel. Living conditions, at first decent,
became increasingly more difficult as the situation of
the Jews deteriorated. Even so, Ferramonti was
never a “concentration camp” in the German
sense of the term. Four weddings and 21 births took
place here and no one was selected for the Polish gas
chambers. Relations between internees and
authorities were tolerable.
Ferramonti was not a work camp; internees
could basically do what they wanted. Still, the
camp had barbed wire fences. The Red Cross would
send packages including medicine, but the Italian doctors
would confiscate the goods and sell them on the black
market. Although the food was not very good, the
Italians would smuggle in better foods like oil and
bread. Alex’s job for the Italians was to pick
up bread outside of the camp for distribution; the
Italians would give him the occasional extra loaf.
The family was just learning to speak the Italian
language.
Prisoners were required to give the fascist
salute to the camp commander when he passed by, but Adolf
would always avoid him for this reason. One day
when Vera was with her father, the camp commandant
cornered them and said “you don’t salute me as
a man; you honor my uniform!” Adolf replied,
“You as an individual I don’t know; it’s
your uniform I despise.” The commander
stomped away furious. Yet, when Adolf died in
August of 1942, the commander came with his two little
boys to the funeral and remarked that Adolf was a man
that he had respected.
As head of the family who was protecting his
wife his children, Adolf was under a great deal of stress
and lost a lot of weight. One day he was given a
typhoid shot (men were given the shot in their chest) and
later that day he suffered a heart attack. He
hadn’t been feeling well all day and was taking a
nap when he died. Several doctors tried to
help, but there was no medicine to save him. Still,
if he had survived, doctors said he would have had no
quality of life; this would have truly destroyed
him. He was 48 years of age. Under a simple
wooden marker, Adolf was buried in the town near where
the camp was located (Tarsia). Many years later as
an adult, Alex went to visit the site.
Families
living in the camp could request to go into “libero
confino” (free confinement), which meant that you
could go live in a town but were confined to that town
with mandatory daily check-in at the local police
station. When he was alive, Adolf had refused to
ask anything of his captors, so they never petitioned to
move. A few months after he died, the camp
commandant told the family he wanted to provide Marianne,
Alex and Vera with libero confino. They declined
the offer, but the commander faked their signature and
shipped them out. When they left, Vera, in an
effort to emulate her father, said to him, “You are
my enemy, but you are a decent man and I respect
you.” The commander saluted her and said it
was one of the greatest honors he had ever been given.
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