ANDmigrant emergency in Lampedusa. These three words, one next to the other, dominate – once again – the news: as has happened cyclically for years. Record numbers in the hotspot of Lampedusa in early September rekindled social alarm on the island, the scene of landings and sea tragedies without equal in the Mediterranean. Massacres that mark our history and our conscience from what is now a symbolic date: on October 3, 2013. When 368 people lost their lives off the coast of Lampedusa.
Lampedusa: the first great migrant tragedy, 10 years ago
It opens on Tuesday 26 September at 6pm in Milan, at the Shoah memorialan exhibition “dedicated” to the first great tragedy of the Mediterranean. The memory of objects. Lampedusa, 3 October 2013 remember how that day in early October, for the first time, the bodies of the castaways were visible to the whole world. From that day the collective perception of shipwrecks changed and the first great emotional wave was unleashed, the first reaction on a political, media and social level.
The exhibition The memory of objects. Lampedusa, 3 October 2013
The exhibition includes images of Karim El Maktafi, Italian-Moroccan photographer, born in 1992. His still life of objects belonging to migrants. His shots of the sea and landscapes of Lampedusa. And his portraits of some of the rescuers, such as Giusi Nicoliniformer Mayor of Lampedusa, and some survivors and relatives of the victims.
But there are also some on display objects that actually belonged to the migrant people who died on that tragic October 3rd. A child’s red car, a pair of sunglasses, a bottle of perfume, a broken mirror, a compass, a note written in pen and carefully folded in the pocket. Objects then found by the police as criminal evidence, evidence to be brought to court which allowed them to identify deceased people also thanks to DNA detections. To give them a name and restore dignity to their families too. Objects of everyday life that are the most evident image of a humanity on the run. Some family members had to wait up to 12 months for the bodies to be recognized and also to have their rights protected, such as simply having a death certificate.
«The strength of those objects is that they force us to look in our pockets», explain Valerio Cataldi and Imma Carpiniello of Carta di Roma and Associazione Museo Migrante in the texts accompanying the exhibition. «Looking for those sunglasses, that watch, that bottle of perfume, that mirror, that telephone. They force us to recognize that our life is full of the same things. That only chance allowed us to not need to grab those objects and leave our world forever.”
The exhibition is enriched by the audio of the first people who provided assistance, the video of the sunken boat and the television reports of Valerio Cataldi, the Rai journalist who in December 2013 revealed on TG2 the inhumane treatment reserved for the guests of the initial reception center on the island theater of the massacre, which was later closed.
Adal and his drawings that tell of torture
Another protagonist at the Shoah Memorial is Adal Neguse, Eritrean refugee, with its drawings and its history. His brother Abraham was among the victims of the Lampedusa shipwreck. Adal instead landed in Malta on a boat, repatriated and locked up in a prison on the island of Dalak, in the Red Sea and then tortured. With his drawings he recounted the atrocities of torture suffered by young people in his country who tried to escape from the regime. Since there is no documentation of torture, these drawings were acquired as evidence by the United Nations in the resolution condemning the Eritrean regime for crimes against humanity.
Adal Neguse, Eritrean refugee, with his daughter, in Sweden. Picture of Karim El Maktafi.
Why the Shoah Memorial
The choice of the Shoah Memorial as a venue it is particularly significant. «This is an important commitment for the Memorial, in line first of all with the actions undertaken together with the Community of Sant’Egidio between 2015 and 2017, when we welcomed over 8000 people who arrived in Italy as refugees, and with its own purpose social”, recalls Roberto Jarach, president of the Shoah Memorial Foundation in Milan. Not only: “The Memorial is a place linked to the horrors that wars and injustices have createdand today must therefore be a space for reflection on these issues.”
As part of the exhibition, a program of a series of in-depth meetings is planned. Access to the exhibition is included in the entrance ticket to the Memorial.
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