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On July 19, 2005, in
Santa Maria al Bagno (Nardo`), Lecce, Italy, at the conference center of
the "Quattro Colonne" (Lungomare Alfonso
Lamarmora) a conference organized by the Nardo`s City Hall will take place
to officially inform the public about the concession (on January 2005) of
a golden medal to the Nardo`s community by the President of the Italian Republic,
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
The reason for this important aknowledgement is the fact that the local community hosted from 1944 to 1948 the displaced people arriving from the freed territories of Germany/Austria/Poland under the flags of the US/UK Governments and UNRRA.
Some former guests of the DP Camp of Santa Maria al Bagno as well as some personalities are expected to participate.
To further verify through the web of any further useful information: the Comune di Nardo at http://www.comune.nardo.le.it.
Please note that Massimiliano Boccardo, active info-center in Santa Maria al Bagno could perhaps provide some useful information. His email address: info@inprimis.net.
The end of July in Salento is notoriously very hot and dry, so be sure to find good and confortable accomodations as well as any necessary information in advance.
Very truly yours, Pierluigi Congedo,
London
pierluigi.congedo@kcl.ac.uk
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I'm so grateful for your
site, I thought I was going crazy trying to find Santa
Maria Di Bagni until I saw it on your site. My father is 79 years old, a
holocaust survivor from Poland who lost his entire family and then lived in
Italy at the DP camp from 1945 - 1950. I am writing his biography and planning
on visiting the site this August 2004. The problem is I can't find it anywhere
on the map. Could you please help! Any information or contacts that you know
of would be incredible. I promise when I return I will write you all about it
and send you photographs for the site. Many thanks, Helen
Blatt Phone 212.229.2487 / Fax 212.647.1868
9/29/04 Hello Helen (and Olga)
I have just read your lines regarding the DP Camp of Santa Maria al
Bagno (Nardo,
Lecce). My grandparents owned an old house in Santa Maria al Bagno that
was seized by the US / UK governments between 1944 and 1947 in order to
provide a location to the DP Persons who arrived in Santa Maria pursuant
to a UNRRA project. In Sept. 2004, my parents and I guested for a week
Mr. Ottfried Weisz, from Bedford, Mass., 74, a former guest of the DP camp,
with his wife Gennie. It was very emotional for him to be back there after
60 years, to be received by the vice-Mayor of the town, to speak on regional
television and to be interviewed by a local newspaper, and to be guest
of an high school for a touching conference.
Please do not hesitate to inform your father that with a group of friends, we are trying to collect any oral/written witnesess of that period and that we would be grateful to him if he could send us any written/recorded memory of the period he spent in that village.
I am glad if you can cooperate with my attempt to save any witnesess of that
time over there, I do believe that we have a duty to do it, since at
least we have understood what happened! Here the picture I have of our house
(1940):
"DP Camp nr. 34" (1944-1947) - the correct name is Santa Maria al Bagno (borough
of Nardo, province of Lecce, region: Puglia, Italy). It can be also found
as Bagni
di Santa Maria, but it is less frequent.
I thank you for you admirable activity, that provides an unreplaceable source of information and contacts. Pierluigi Congedo, Rome Italy vienneseotto@juno.com
7 July 2009, Dear Olga,
Please
find here attached a photo I recently found in a local newspaper. It
actually reproduces some DPs already gathered in Santa Maria al Bagno (Nardò,
LE) in 1944, when the picture was taken just in front and on the staircase
of our family house in Santa Maria. Looking at the clothes and the time
(1944) it is possible that they were Yugoslavs liberated by local concentration
camps (Nazi or even Italian) by Tito's partisans. The fact that they
were gathered in Santa Maria as DP persons (i.e. that the did not want
to stay in their original country) may be explained with their political
views (opponents of Communism, Royalists?). The house still belongs to
our family and contains some traces of the passage of the many Jews that
in those years passed throughout (1944-48). Kind regards. Pierluigi - Pierluigi.Congedo@ulb.ac.be
Click photo to enlarge
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Photo
at left submitted by Elie Lewinger.
10/23/04 Dear Olga,
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We found your site and
we are interested in getting and giving information about displaced people
after WW2. My parents, Polish Jews from Cracovie were lucky to survive Auschwitz,
Bergen Belsen and Mathausen. They decided to go to Palestine. At the end of
1945, they stayed in a refugee camp called either Santa Maria di Bagni (where
I have the address and maybe the photo I have correponds to it) or Santa Maria
di Leuca. In 1946 my parents were waiting for a ship, but their plans were
changed and they left Italy to go to France in 1948, where I was raised. My
parents are dead and they left me some photos of that period without saying
who the people were and we never met them afterwards. If anyone wants to contact
me, it will be with pleasure.Thank you in advance. Elie
Lewinger / France
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I've seen your site...it's
very interesting. Don't forget the past is the priority to make better our
world! I'm in Santa Maria al Bagno and I work in the tourism sector. In 2004,
in Santa Maria al Bagno is born an association and a little museum about the
DP Camp of Santa Maria al Bagno. If someone wants some information to reach
S. Maria al Bagno or wants to come here, my email is info@inprimis.net. I
have also a site http://www.inprimis.net/public/catalog where you can find
some B&B or different solutions to stay here.
  
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| I send you the photos of three murales made in Santa Maria al Bagno by Zivi Miller, a holocaust survivor from Rumania. I think they are a very important memories about the dp camp of S. Maria al Bagno. These three murales are still here (...they are almost decadent) and we are tring to save them! But it's not simple because the local administration doesn't believe that they can have a touristic interesting!! So there is not money to save them!!!! It's a very sad story!!! Look at the photos and tell me what do you think! Thank you. Massimiliano Boccardo Inprimis sas - servizi al territorio |
