Collection of Documents and Letters – Secretary of Ferramonti di Tarsia Displaced Persons Camp, 1944-1945

Collection of Documents and Letters – Secretary of Ferramonti di Tarsia Displaced Persons Camp, 1944-1945
Approximately 60 documents, letters and paper items, which belonged to the secretary of Ferramonti di Tarsia Displace Persons Camp, Philipp Kanner. 1944-1945 (a number of items are from 1943). German, English and Polish.
• A notebook with duplicates of 56 notices handwritten by Kanner to the Welfare Committee of the camp: orders of food, maintenance instructions, notices from the camp's police, Kashrut, dwelling, and other notices. Most notes are signed by Kanner and a small part is signed by the camp commander (Jan Hermann?).
• Eighteen letters and drafts, written by hand and typewritten, sent to and by Kanner. Among them: a long and interesting letter by Kanner to one of the camp's officers, informing him that he intends to retire from his post. The letter brings a detailed report about the camp, failures of management, sanitation, deserting interns, state of inmates, and other subjects (two copies); a letter to the camp's commander, referring to the growing black market, to rising prices of products, and the urgent need to raise the inmates allowance; a formal letter of complaint to the commander of the camp's police, submitted by Kanner, following an attack by one of the inmates; and more.
• More than forty documents and various paper items, printed and handwritten, documenting the management of the camp. Among them: list of rules and regulations for the camp's inmates; invoices, various lists of camp's inmates (some are classified according to countries of origin, age and sex); lists of food rations; and more.
The Italian concentration camp Ferramonti di Tarsia was the largest among concentration camps established by Benito Mussolini in the summer of 1940. Most prisoners were Jewish. In September 1943, a few days before Italy surrendered to the Allied Forces, the prisoners were released. Many of the inmates stayed in the camp and it served as a Displaced Persons Camp until its closure in December 1945.
Size and condition vary. Good-fair overall condition.