ABSTRACT
Opened by the Ministry of the Interior in June 1940, this camp was set up in the 15th-century castle owned by the Marchi family and situated in Montechiarugolo’s downtown. The camp came to be known for the frequent coming and going of internees, the first of whom were “contingent” ones who arrived in early August 1940. The daily life of the internees was spent between the rooms, the loggia and the castle’s courtyard, whose entrance was guarded by the carabinieri that had placed a permanent guardhouse there. The camp developed many analogies with the Montechiarugolo one, since both were set up in old, humid castles facing problems with heat and water delivery. The Bagno a Ripoli camp initially held foreign and stateless Jews, as well as “enemy subjects”. The camp of Montalbano took its name from the Castle of Montalbano, a castle/villa that belonged to the Pardo family where the camp was created in June 1940.
