From Concentration Camp to Christian Utopia: a battaglia per la moralità

Abstract

Guards stationed at Fossoli peered from watchtowers on the morning of May 19, 1947 as Priest Don Zeno Saltini and 200 orphans approached in a column of trucks and cars, leaving a trail of dust in their wake.¹ The children’s voices joined in song as the trucks halted in front of the gate, melodically requesting entry. Refugees and prisoners in the adjoining camp climbed onto the barrack roofs to get a look at Don Zeno and his orphan brigade. Don Zeno’s official requests to Interior Minister Mario Scelba to inhabit the camp and turn it into a Catholic orphanage had gone unanswered so the Carpi priest’s unexpected arrival forced the issue. When the guards finally opened the gate, the interns cheered. Don Zeno led his entourage to an unoccupied section of the campo indeserabili quartered off by barbed wire.²