Villa Sorge
In Lanciano between 1940 and 1943 several hundred people were interned for political or racial reasons. For this purpose a concentration camp was set up and numerous private homes were made available, forty-four of which are shown on the interactive map.
The Villa Sorge camp
During World War II, Abruzzo was the Italian region with the highest number of concentration camps. There were 15 camps, along with 63 locations used for the so-called “free internment”. Lanciano held the unfortunate national distinction of simultaneously being the site for free internment, political confinement, and a fascist concentration camp.
The camp, owned by attorney Filippo Sorge, was active from 27 June 1940 until 8 September 1943. Initially, it operated as a women’s concentration camp, mainly reserved for foreign Jewish women. There were 75 women plus 4 children, aged between 1 and 14, who came from various parts of Europe and spoke German, French, English, Italian, Russian, and Polish. From 12 February 1942, Villa Sorge became a men’s concentration camp for “communists and Slavic nationalists”. In its later years, it experienced a very turbulent existence, as attested by the hunger strike on 4 April 1942 and the numerous arrests and transfers of internees. Among these was Carlo Schönheim, a Jewish doctor of Hungarian origin, who became the deputy commander of the Banda partigiana that fought valiantly against the German army on 5 and 6 October 1943, earning Lanciano the Gold Medal of Military Valor.
Maria Eisenstein
Adding further significance to the story of the Lanciano concentration camp is the book L’internata numero 6, published in Rome in 1944 by Maria Eisenstein. As reconstructed by Carlo Spartaco Capogreco, the author of the book is Maria Ludwika Moldauer, a Polish Jew who was interned at Villa Sorge between 4 July and 13 December 1940. She was again in Lanciano from August 1942 to September 1943 under the free internment regime together with her husband Samuel Eisenstein, married in Guardiagrele, where both were interned.
The text allows readers to experience firsthand life within a fascist concentration camp, blending—with artistic freedom—facts and characters, thoughts, anxieties, and the torments of the confined women. Overall, L’internata numero 6 is an ode to freedom of rare beauty, written with the subtle weapon of irony and in the form of a skillful screenplay in which its author, once freed, finally transformed herself into a cloud to fly away—as if in a Chagall painting—far from any prison and disappearing dramatically from the scene. Her book remains enchanting, transfiguring the raw truth of the camp into an artwork of rare beauty and of the highest moral and civic value.
Next
The victims of Villa Sorge
Insights
The story of Susanne Lewinger. Internee number 54 of the fascist concentration camp of Lanciano
Recommended book
"Dietro il sipario" - Maria Eisenstein and the Invention of the Diary
The book, supported by a long and accurate historical-documentary research, analyzes the text of Maria Eisenstein, “Internee No. 6”, which has been considered one of the most precious testimonies on the fascist internment during the years of the Second World War. The result is a surprising interpretation of the text, long considered little more than a diary.
Wikiradio
The Lanciano Uprising
