Postcard from Jewish Inmate at Internment Camp Campagna Near Salerno, Italy to Trieste Family Member

Authors

Object ID

2021.1.17

Object Name

Postcard

Date

12-12-1940

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

Postcard written in green ink. Panoramic view of Campagna is seen on front.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Mr. Lescheziner, here writing to a relative with the same surname, may have been among the first interns of the men captured in Italy. Most were Jews from Germany and Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia; however, there were as well Italian and French Jews. In any case the number of inmates at Campagna was small. Importantly, unlike camps in France, Germany or Poland - or for that matter other puppet states such as Slovakia, Romania, Croatia or Hungary, inmates had no restrictions on mail, and dd not experience threat of deportation. Hitler’s exhortations to the contrary notwithstanding, prisoners were able to keep their cultural and religious commitments alive. They moved freely through the town and socialized with the local inhabitants, who befriended them. The mayor and bishop themselves were instrumental in protecting Jews from deportation to concentration camps as were local Fascist groups. When the allies invaded southern Italy, and the Germans invaded from the North, locals helped the inmates to escape into the mountains.

Dimensions

5 3/4 x 4"

Keywords

Camp Campagna, Salerno, Lescheziner

Subcollection

Internment

Recommended Citation

"Postcard from Jewish Inmate at Internment Camp Campagna Near Salerno, Italy to Trieste Family Member" (1940). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2021.1.17.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1719