Thematic sites - Municipality of Milan

The Stumbling Stones Committee of Milan organized the laying of 26 stones, 13 dedicated to political deportees and 13 dedicated to racial deportees. The poses will be on January 25th, close to the day of remembrance, and on March 7th, the days in which the eightieth anniversary of the strikes of March 1944 occurs. 
On January 24th at 20.30pm at the House of Memory there will be a ceremony open to citizens in which some of the relatives of the deportees for whom the stones will be laid will also participate, an opportunity to learn more about some of the stories. 
Because each stone tells a unique and unrepeatable story and story and all together, now almost 200 in the municipality of Milan, they tell a fundamental piece of the Second World War, of racial and political persecution and of anti-fascism.
There are no more or less important stories, but there are more or less documented events. 
Charlotte Thomas, born in 1906, married and mother of two children, worked at the Borletti factory active in war production. Thomas was arrested during the March strikes and deported to Mauthausen. She from here went to Auschwitz and then to Bergen Belsen where she died of typhus on 10 April 1945.
There are many other stones in Milan dedicated to workers arrested during the March strikes of which this year marks the eightieth anniversary. Elio Agresti, active in the clandestine cell of the PCI in Dergano, worker at Breda, was arrested in the raids following the strikes of March '44. He manages to send a note to his wife before leaving: "We are leaving for Germany, kisses to you and Silvana". He was deported to Mauthausen and went to various camps before dying in Ebensee on 4 April 1945.
Like last year, a stone is dedicated to an Italian Military Intern and this year we celebrate one of the 44 heroes of Unterlüss, the officer second lieutenant Giorgio Balboni. Captured by the Germans after 8 September 1943 on the Yugoslav front, he was deported to Germany. Refusing to collaborate with the Wehrmacht, he is chosen together with 212 other officers for forced labor at the Dedeldorf airfield. From 17 to 24 February 1945 the group of officers organized a strike, refusing any possible collaboration with the Nazis. The Gestapo's reaction was not long in coming: one soldier killed for every 10 officers, 21 men in total. Balboni, together with 43 other officers, intends to replace one of the selected. Faced with this heroic gesture, the Gestapo decides to commute the sentence of shooting to detention in the Unterlüss punitive camp. 
Among the stones for the Jewish deportees, the laying of the stones for Lea Behar and Sara Dana, mother and daughter respectively, is particularly touching. Lea was arrested in the synagogue where she had gone to ask for widowhood benefits. Her daughter who was hospitalized in Pietra Ligure no longer has any news of her mother, she sends her a postcard and she is thus traced. Both die in Auschwitz. A story that demonstrates how Jews were hunted at all times and everywhere. It should be remembered that these stones were requested by a school, the Istituto Comprensivo Ada Merini, after having learned about the story thanks to a laboratory on historical sources; a concrete example of the connection between school and teaching, Committee and territory,  
Even the stones for Mario de Benedetti and Theresia Herz, husband and wife, are nearby to remember a destroyed family unit. Pneumologist removed from all his duties, Mario de Benedetti decided in November 1943 to attempt to escape to Switzerland with his mother, sister, wife and 8-year-old son. Stopped at the border, the couple are arrested while the child with his aunt and grandmother is allowed to go back. Mario and Theresia were incarcerated in Tirano and then in San Vittore and then deported to Auschwitz where Theresia died of starvation in July 1944 while Mario died a few months later during the death marches.
The stone for Bianca Foà which will be placed next to that of her husband Aldo Levi laid last year shows in front of the house in which the two young spouses lived who, as Senator Segre recalls, shared the cell with her and her father for a few days in the San Vittore prison.

The Committee, deeply convinced of the importance of all these events being known in their specificity, but also in the subtle threads that intertwine them, is working for the digitization of documents and the creation of a database that makes everyone autonomous in research and knowledge. those, schools in particular, who want to document and work on these stories.

Furthermore, for the fourth consecutive year, these "stumbling blocks" will also have a digital narrative declination thanks to the collaboration between the Stumbling Stones Committee - Milan and the European Institute of Design, with the patronage of the Municipality of Milan.
The planning - conducted by multidisciplinary teams made up of young creatives from different courses - led to an interpretation that follows different narrative lines, using languages ​​and media aimed at specific audiences. 
The IED students therefore identified a 'red thread' that would allow them to translate individual events into a story accessible even to the youngest, helping to keep the memory of what happened alive in an even broader and more shared way.

On Thursday 24th at 20.30 pm at the Casa della Memoria there will be a reading of the names of the deportees to whom the stones are dedicated in the presence of relatives who want to participate and the activity carried out by the IED will be presented. 

Elio Agresti - born in Montalcino (SI) on 16/11/1910 - arrested on 14/03/1944 - deported to Mauthausen - murdered in Ebensee on 04/04/1945. Stumbling block in via Amilcare Bonomi, 2

Eugenio Arabo - born on 23/10/1912 - arrested on 8/9/1943 - deported to Dachau - murdered in Überlingen on 11/04/1945. Stumbling block in via Leonardo Bruni, 13

Giorgio Balboni - born in Carrara on 18/10/1917 - arrested 8/9/1943 - deported to Unterlüss - murdered 15/04/1945. Stumbling block in via Spartaco 11

Giovanni Bonacina - born in Monza on 27/09/1885 - arrested on 17/06/1944 - deported to Flossenbürg - murdered on 9/01/1945. Stumbling block in progress XXII March, 4 

Lea BEHAR - born in Istanbul (Turkey) on 14/03/1900 - arrested on 8/11/1943 - deported to Auschwitz on 11/12/1943 - murdered. Sara DANA - born in Milan on 16/10/1927 - arrested on 29/12/1943 - deported to Auschwitz on 6/02/1944 - murdered. Stumbling stones in via GB Casella, 41 

Egidio Bosé - born in Affori (MI) on 27/08/1905 - arrested on 24/06/1944 - deported to Flossenbürg - murdered in Gusen on 10/01/1945. Stumbling block in via Cesare Brivio 7

Giuseppe Cajelli - born in Corgeno (VA) on 20/10/1885 - arrested 03/03/1944 - deported to Gusen - murdered 22/04/1945. Stumbling block in via Bernardino de' Conti, 6

Gino Emanuele Errera - born in Thessaloniki on 5 October 1893 - arrested on 21 February 1944 - deported on 5 April 1944 to Auschwitz - Murdered. Stumbling block in via Settembrini 5

Mario de Benedetti - born in Mantua on 10 November 1892, arrested on 23 November 1943 - deported to Auschwitz on 5 April 1944, murdered on 7 April 1945 in Seesen
Theresia Herz, born in Cairo on 6 February 1900, arrested on 23 November 1943 - deported to Auschwitz on 5 April 1944, murdered on 17 July 1944. Stumbling blocks in Via Gesù, 4

Bianca FOA' - born in Milan on 03/11/1905 - arrested on 26/11/1943 - deported to Auschwitz on 6/02/1944 - murdered on 30/09/1944. Stumbling Stone in via Cambiasi 3.
Mario Giuliani - born in Treviglio (BG) on 9/12/1924 - arrested 19/7/1944 - deported to Buchenwald - murdered 19/03/1945. Stumbling Stone in via Terruggia, 6
Lea Elisa Landau - born in Odessa on 19 March 1886 - Arrested on an unknown date, deported on 16 May 1944 to Auschwitz - Murdered. Stumbling block in via Maiocchi 26
Guglielmo Levi - born in Milan on 19/12/1910 - arrested on 26/10/1943 - deported to Auschwitz on 23/05/1944 - murdered. Stumbling Stone in via Ariosto 3
Giuseppe Merlini - born in Tornaco (NO) on 18/02/1897 - arrested 26/11/1944 - deported to Kahla - murdered 23/03/1945. Stumbling block in via Don Giovanni Verità, 7
Anacleto Morandi - born in Milan on 09/01/1909 - arrested in Milan on 4/03/1944 - deported to Mauthausen - murdered in Ebensee on 27/01/1945. Stumbling block in via Eugenio Carpi 3
Dionigi Parietti - born in Bosco Valtravaglia (VA) on 4/12/1905 - arrested on 2/03/1944 - deported to Mauthausen - murdered in Ebensee on 6/05/1945. Stumbling block in via Pinamonte from Vimercate 11

Emilia Rafael - born in Corfu on 27/12/1874 - arrested 3/12/1943 - deported to Auschwitz on 6/02/1944 - murdered 6/02/1944; Wanda Labi - born in Tripoli on 26/08/1904 - arrested on 3/12/1943 - deported to Auschwitz on 6/02/1944 - murdered; Vittorino De Semo - born in Mansura on 19/02/1900 - arrested 3/12/1943 - deported to Auschwitz on 6/02/1944 - murdered. Stumbling Stones in via Mascheroni 8
Enrico Ravenna - born in Mantua on 4 November 1889 - arrested on 21 December 1943 - deported on 2 August 1944 to Auschwitz - Assassinated. Stumbling block in Foro Bonaparte 18

Carlotta Regina Thomas - born in Saulxures (France) on 22/04/1906 - arrested on 11/03/1944 - deported to Mauthausen - murdered in Bergen Belsen on 10/04/1945. Stumbling block in via Emanuele Odazio 6

Umberto Tonoli - born in Calvisano (BS) on 10/11/1900 - arrested on 8/6/1944 - deported to Flossenbürg - murdered in Gusen on 1/3/1945. Stumbling Stone in via Orti, 16
Angelo Valagussa - born in Cernusco Lombardone (LC) on 24/06/1922 - arrested 19/02/1944 - deported to Mauthausen - murdered 14/03/1945. Stumbling block in viale Affori, 20

Margarethe Weissenstein de Francesco - born in Vienna on 5 November 1893 - arrested on an unknown date - Deported on 14 December 1944 to Ravensbrück - murdered. Stumbling block in via Renato Fucini, 5

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