| Rab | |
|---|---|
| Italian concentration camp | |
 Prisoners under the control of an Italian official | |
| Location | Rab, Province of Fiume, Kingdom of Italy |
| Operated by | Royal Italian Army |
| Operational | 28 June 1942 – 8 September 1943 |
| Inmates | Slovenes, Croats and Jews |
| Number of inmates | 15,000 |
| Killed | 3,500 – 4,641 |
| Liberated by | Yugoslav Partisans |
The Rab concentration camp (Italian: Campo di concentramento per internati civili di Guerra – Arbe; Croatian: Koncentracijski logor Rab; Slovene: Koncentracijsko taborišče Rab) was one of several Italian concentration camps. It was established during World War II, in July 1942, on the Italian-annexed island of Rab (now in Croatia).
According to historians James Walston[1] and Carlo Spartaco Capogeco,[2] at 18%, the annual mortality rate in the camp was higher than the average mortality rate in the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald (15%). According to a report by Monsignor Jože Srebrnič, Bishop of Krk on 5 August 1943 to Pope Pius XII: "witnesses, who took part in the burials, state unequivocally that the number of the dead totals at least 3,500".[2] According to Yugoslav estimates of the Commission for Determining the Crimes of the Occupiers, 4,641 detainees died at the camp, including 800 inmates who died while being transported from Rab to the Gonars and Padua concentration camps in Italy.[3][4] However, other sources place the figure at around 2,000.[5]
In July 1943, after the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, the camp was closed, but some of the remaining Jewish prisoners were deported by German forces to the extermination camp at Auschwitz. Yugoslavia, Greece and Ethiopia requested the extradition of some 1,200 Italian war criminals, who, however, were never brought before an appropriate tribunal because the British government, at the beginning of the Cold War, saw in Pietro Badoglio a guarantor of an anti-communist post-war Italy.[6] In the autumn of 1943, Yugoslav Partisans, led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, rescued approximately 2,500 Jews from the island.[7]
- ^ James Walston (1997) History and Memory of the Italian Concentration Camps, Historical Journal, p. 40.
- ^ a b Cresciani, Gianfranco (2004) Clash of civilisations Archived 2020-05-06 at the Wayback Machine, Italian Historical Society Journal, Vol.12, No.2, p.7
- ^ "OKRUGLI STOL O TALIJANSKIM LOGORIMA U PRIMORJU I DALMACIJI OD 1941.-DO 1943. GODINE". 30 August 2017.
- ^ "Le vittime nazionalità italiana a Fiume e dintorni (1939-1947)". pp. 104–105.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Fuller, Thomas; Tribune, International Herald (29 October 2003). "Survivors of war camp lament Italy's amnesia". The New York Times.
- ^ Effie Pedaliu (2004) Britain and the 'Hand-over' of Italian War Criminals to Yugoslavia, 1945-48. Journal of Contemporary History. Volume 39, No. 4, Special Issue: Collective Memory, pp. 503-529 (JStor.org preview)
- ^ Kerenji, Emil (2016). "'Your Salvation is the Struggle Against Fascism': Yugoslav Communists and the Rescue of Jews, 1941–1945". Contemporary European History. 25 (1): 57–74. doi:10.1017/S0960777315000478. ISSN 0960-7773.