Risiera di San Sabba Rice Mill National Monument and Museum – Trieste
The Risiera di San Sabba – a factory for the processing of rice built starting from 1898 – was used after 8 September 1943 by the Nazi occupier as a prison camp, and later destined for the sorting of deportees headed to Germany and Poland, to the storage of looted assets and the detention and elimination of hostages, partisans, political prisoners and Jews. On April 4, 1944, a crematorium was also put into operation. In 1965 the Risiera di San Sabba was declared a National Monument by decree of the President of the Republic. In 1975 the Risiera, renovated to a design by the Roman architect Boico, became the Civic Museum of the Risiera di San Sabba.
The Civic Museum of the Risiera di San Sabba (inaugurated in 1975) and the adjacent photographic-documentary path of the historical exhibition (created by Elio Apih in 1982 and expanded in 1998) illustrate, through reproductions of documents and testimonies of various kinds, the history of the Risiera, at the same time reconstructing a picture of the historical, political and military events of the entire region during the first half of the twentieth century.
Thanks to some important donations, from January 27, 2002, Day of Remembrance, the Museum has changed its original didactic connotation and has also become a place for the conservation of memory, where tangible and direct testimonies of suffering are exhibited.
The monument
The architect Romano Boico, winner of the competition launched by the Municipality of Trieste in 1966 to transform the Risiera into the current Museum (inaugurated in 1975).