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Collettivo Domino
La storia
Italia,1939. Il regime fascista arresta, scheda e manda al confino centinaia di persone in tutto il paese, quasi esclusivamente uomini, perché omosessuali. Di questi interventi repressivi si sa poco o niente, gli storici non li hanno affrontati e l’argomento è sempre stato taciuto. Abbiamo deciso di dedicarci al particolare caso delle Isole Tremiti, raccontato nel saggio “La città e l’isola” (Gianfranco Goretti e Tommaso Giartosio). Il libro ripercorre gli arresti del 1939 nella città di Catania, che culminarono con la più ampia operazione di confino sull’Isola di San Domino, Tremiti. Qui gli arrusi, come si definivano in dialetto, i pederasti, come vengono etichettati nei documenti, o femminielli, come vengono ricordati dagli abitanti dell’isola, rimasero per più di un anno.
La vita quotidiana era sottoposta a regole, censure, divieti, sempre sotto il controllo delle forze dell’ordine. Gli arrestati erano quasi tutti analfabeti e per lo più sarti, operai, contadini, qualche impiegato, qualche insegnante. In colonia vivranno tutti nei cameroni comuni.
Il confino degli omosessuali in epoca fascista fu un’opera di segregazione e repressione svolta nel massimo silenzio. A questo silenzio contribuirono anche le vittime e gli abitanti dell’isola che vi avevano assistito. Non ci sono più arrusi rimasti in vita e gli anziani di San Domino, che al tempo erano bambini, sembrano non ricordarsene molto bene. “Si vestivano da donna, facevano molte feste, alcuni coltivavano i campi, altri facevano i sarti o i barbieri”.
Alcuni abitanti dell’isola addirittura non sanno (o fanno finta di non sapere) del confino degli “amori invertiti“. L’unico segno di memoria é una targa commemorativa: poche righe, volute da Vladimir Luxuria, incise, quasi nascoste, su una parete del municipio.
I documenti
La ricerca di tracce ha avuto un punto di svolta con la consultazione dell’Archivio Centrale di Stato. Tra molti documenti generici troviamo un appiglio, un elenco di nomi scritti a mano nel 1939: i primi omosessuali confinati a Tremiti, un primo sbarco di una sessantina di uomini, quasi tutti catanesi. All’epoca non esisteva un vero e proprio reato di “pederastia” e gli omosessuali venivano condannati per “reati di diritto comune”. Questo rende più difficile la ricerca: i loro fascicoli sono persi nel mare di documenti di tutte le persone che ebbero a che fare con la Polizia fascista. Anarchici, comunisti, disertori. Poi, finalmente, arriviamo a loro, gli “apolitici” confinati per pederastia. Sede di confino San Domino, Tremiti. Nei faldoni impolverati troviamo una grande quantitá di fogli: la denuncia, i verbali degli interrogatori; poi la condanna, il referto medico come prova “scientifica” della colpevolezza, telegrammi dall’isola, ricorsi e lettere dei parenti. Queste ultime sono tante, scritte con calligrafie incerte o da professionisti, inviate e rinviate a tutte le più alte cariche del regime, compreso lo stesso Mussolini. Tutte hanno lo stesso intento: la supplica della scarcerazione del confinato, per presunta innocenza, pentimento, grave malattia e qualsiasi motivazione possibile. Poi una dettagliata scheda personale. Dopo aver letto tanto su di loro, le fotografie ci rivelano i volti dei nostri arrusi: appena fatti prigionieri, ignari di cosa stia per succedergli, guardano fisso in macchina. Incontriamo i loro sguardi carichi di stupore, incredulità, vergogna e paura.
Capiamo così che questi documenti diventeranno parte fondamentale del nostro lavoro.
L’isola
“Se non ci si arriva da turisti, San Domino puó mettere paura”.
Le Tremiti hanno una lunga vocazione carceraria. Federico I di Borbone utilizzó l’abbazia sull’isola di San Nicola per deportarci i malviventi.
Gli anni trenta e quaranta furono l’epoca d’oro delle Tremiti come colonia, che grazie alla presenza dei confinati e delle forze militari, venne fornita dal Duce di esercizi commerciali e villette con giardino. Gli anziani abitanti delle Isole ricordano con nostalgia quei tempi di ricchezza e abbondanza. Vennero portati sulle isole prima i confinati politici, sull’isola di San Nicola. Poi gli omosessuali a San Domino, isola più impervia e selvaggia. Non dovevano mescolarsi con i liberi cittadini e nemmeno con chi aveva commesso altri “crimini”. Attorno a loro occorreva creare il vuoto.
Il confino a Tremiti fu vissuto diversamente dalle due tipologie di condannato: il confinato politico possedeva una forma di consapevolezza, di libertá; il pederasta, invece, è spesso inconsapevole e subisce la propria condanna, che non è imputabile a un’ideologia ma alla propria natura.
La posizione del confinato omosessuale è a volte anche contraddittoria, perchè i pochi che dichiarano una fede politica, forse per pura convenienza, sono proprio fascisti.
Le Tremiti sono eredi di un particolare senso di solitudine e desolazione. Il simbolo delle isole è la diomedea, un uccello marino simile al gabbiano che prende il nome dall’eroe greco e che rappresenta i compagni che piangono la sua scomparsa. Ha un canto strano, che si sente solo di notte e che ricorda il pianto di un bambino, o il miagolio di un gatto in amore.
A San Domino c’erano solo i pini, gli scogli, il muro, il mare. In fondo all’isola si arrivava a un faro, dove a volte si potevano avere fugaci incontri sessuali con i marinai di guardia. Lí si era davvero fuori dal mondo. Questo isolamento aveva una duplice valenza per i confinati: da una parte l’esclusione e la prigionia, ma dall’altra una certa libertà. A casa bisognava stare sempre attenti a non essere scoperti, mentre qui “potevi fare quello che volevi, tanto ormai eri in prigione.”
Oggi le Tremiti sono un luogo di vacanza. Dei cameroni dove i confinati dormivano non rimane nulla. Noi a Tremiti ci siamo stati in autunno, quando le isole sono vuote e anche i sub ritornano sulla terraferma. I traghetti diminuiscono e le isole tornano alla loro natura originaria, desolante e desolata.
“É qualcos’altro che mi ha colpito. Una frase che lui si é detto al momento dello sbarco (…): “mi feci il segno della croce e dissi: qui ci portano in pasto ai cani.”
Collettivo Domino
The history
During Fascism, hundreds of people all over Italy, almost exclusively men, were arrested, put in the records and confined because of their homosexuality. Among these several interventions we took into consideration the one reported in the essay "La città e l'isola" (The city and the island) by Gianfranco Goretti and Tommaso Giartosio.
The book reports the detentions in 1939 in the city of Catania which ended in the largest operation of confinement on the island of San Domino of the Tremiti isles. Here the "arrusi", as they defined themselves, the "pederasti", as they were defined in the documents, and the "femminielli", as they are still called by the inhabitants of the island, stayed for more than a year. Daily life was subject to rules, censorship, prohibitions, always under the control of the security force. The people under arrest were almost all illiterate and tailors, workmen, farmers, and in part employees and teachers. In the colony they were all living in common halls.
The confinement of homosexuals during fascism was an act of segregation and repression performed as silently as possible. The victims themselves and the inhabitants of the island who had witnessed this act contributed to maintain the silence. There are not any alive "arrusi" anymore and the old people of S. Domino who were children at that time seem not to remember very well these "femminielli". "They were dressed like women, they were doing a lot of parties, some of them cultivated the crops, some others were tailors or barbers".
This is all we got to know from those who constitute the historical memory of Tremiti. Some inhabitants of the island even do not know (or they pretend they do not know) of the confinement of the "inverted love". There is not any monument, any sign of their presence. The only sign in their memory is a commemorative plate. A few lines, as desired by the politician Vladimir Luxuria, graved, almost hidden, on a wall of the town hall.
So we have decided to interrupt this silence and to look for a way to tell through images this story forgotten by history books and erased from the memory of those who lived it, with what remains of it: the documents and the island.
The documents
The search for traces has had a turning point also thanks to the help by Gianfranco Goretti and Tommaso Giartosio, with the consultation of the Central Archive of the State. During the first consultation of the indexes of the Office of Confinement of the Police, it seemed that the information was scarce. Only generic documents.
Then a paper appeared followed by a list of names written by hand in 1939. They are the names of the first homosexuals confined to Tremiti, a first disembarkation of about sixty men, almost all from Catania. We note this and we start the search for the personal dossiers, lost in the huge quantity of documents of all the people who had been in contact with the fascist Police. Anarchists, communists, deserters. Then, in the end, we find them, the "apolitical men" confined for pederasty. Their confinement domicile: San Domino, Tremiti.
We open the first two dossiers covered with dust and we find a lot of papers: from the denunciation signed by Molina, commissioner of Catania, to the reports of the questionings; then the condemnation, the report of the visit to the Sale Celtiche as the medical and scientific proof of the guilt of the arrested men, telegrams from the island, appeals and letters from parents and families. The latter are a lot, written with uncertain calligraphies or by professionals, sent and re-sent to all the most important representatives of the regime, including Mussolini. All have the same aim: the plea for the end of the confinement, for alleged innocence, regret, severe illness and any other possible
motivation.
Then a detailed personal file. Identity, job, nickname, physical characteristics, fingerprint of the right hand, criminal records, "biography" and mug shot. After having read so much about them, the photographs disclose to us the faces of our "arrusi": just imprisoned, unaware of what is going to happen to them, they look straight into the camera. We meet their eyes full of astonishment, incredulity, shame and fear. So we understand that these documents will be a fundamental part of our work.
The island
"If you do not come here for tourism, San Domino can scare you". The Tremiti isles have a famous inclination to imprisonments. Frederick I of Bourbon used in 1792 the abbey on the island of San Nicola to deport there the bandits. During Fascism, to the isles were sent not only the homosexuals but also people confined for their political ideas, who, by the way, remained on the other island, San Nicola, less wild, more accessible, with prison structures, barracks, but also normal facilities and local people. The 30's and 40's were the golden age of the colony which, thanks to the presence of the confined men and of the correlated armed forces to control them, was provided by the Duce with shops and houses with courtyards. The old people of the Isles with whom we have talked remember with nostalgia those times of richness and abundance.
The island of San Domino, by contrast, was and still is an inaccessible island. During the confinement it was destined exclusively to pederasts, who did not have to get in contact with the free citizens nor those who had committed other "crimes". Around them the void had to be created.
There was a huge gap between the two positions of the confined people of the Tremiti: the antifascist confined man was condemned for a political reason, for his conscious and free opinion. As for the pederast, his position is instead unconscious and contradictory, since it is linked to a space which is cut away from the society.
Each Italian colony of confinement was in an isolated place, often on an island, but the Tremiti are endowed with a particular sense of loneliness and desolation depending only partially from the geographical position and that the confined men of the other colonies could clearly perceive.
It is maybe not by chance that the symbol of this island is the great albatross, a seabird similar to the seagull which is also called "diomedea" from the name of a Greek god and which should represent the companions crying for their disappearance. They have a strange birdsong, which can be heard only at night and which reminds the cry of a baby or a caterwaul.
In San Domino there were only pines, rocks, a wall and the sea. In the back of the island there was a lighthouse, where at times they could have sexual relations with the sailors on guard. That place was really out of the world. And this isolation had a double value for the confined people: on the one hand the desert island, the prison; and on the other hand the freedom. At home they had to pay attention not to be betrayed, whereas here, during the confinement, they could do whatever they wanted to do since they were already in prison.
Today, thanks to its new status of protected sea park and the consequent touristic recovery, the Tremiti have become what Mussolini had always tried to make appear: a place for holidays. Of the halls where the confined men lived there is nothing left. One of the two structures has even become a hotel, with the intent, maybe, to violate once again the memory. The other is a private structure for a warehouse and the touristic guides never say that those places were prisons during Fascism.
We went to Tremiti in August and we decided to go back there in autumn, when the isles
are deserted and also the frogmen are back to dry land. During the low season, in fact, the number of ferries decrease and the isles come back to their original nature: distressing and distressed. In San Domino we slept all together, we played cards, we walked to the lighthouse, we went to the cavern of the sea ox and in the night we listened to the "diomedeas". Finally we sang out Italian songs by Lucio Dalla, all drunk, doing karaoke in the sole pub of the island.
Our intent was to represent through images a place recalled only for its crystal clear waters and the sea bottoms full of fishes. These isles are actually imbued with the echo of a profound tragedy forgotten by history, of which no memory is left, but that our country still suffers from.
"It is something else that struck me. A sentence he told himself during the disembark, in the middle of the celebrations: I made the sign of the cross and said: they are going to throw us to the dogs. He repeats this to himself even later, when everybody is wildly celebrating: All gone to the dogs!"
The afternoon of our arrival, once out of the ferry, two dogs welcomed us. The evening, one of them rested out of our door. It was trembling, it was old, but it trembled a lot, and it did not want to go away. The owner of the house did not want it to stay there. If she sees it here she kills us, we thought. We thought also that it could die during the night, we were worried about it. The following morning, it woke up and yawned and it did not abandon us anymore. We told it goodbye from the ferry, the day we left for Termoli, it had accompanied us to the dock.
go to HANDKERCHIEF No. 1
see on Issuu
EXHIBITION:
Fonderia 20.9 Gallery Verona, 2015
Bitume Photofest 2015, Gallipoli (Le)
SI Fest OFF Savignano Immagini Festival 2014
all images copyright ©2014 Pierangelo Laterza/Collettivo Domino
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