Trieste Gateway to Zion
During the 19th and 20th centuries Trieste registers a constant flow of Jews fleeing to Palestine or the Americas from pogroms in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Thus Trieste becomes the main port for departures to Israel and gets the honorary title of “Shaar Zion” or Gateway to Zion.
Trieste is different from the rest of Europe: here Jews live in a privileged and tolerant reality and enjoy equal rights. The Jewish community is an important part of the economic, social and cultural fabric of the town, resulting even in the construction of the monumental Synagogue in Piazza Giotti opened in 1912. The new temple, one of the biggest in Europe, replaces the four synagogues in town and unites religious functions by blending Ashkenazim and Sephardic tradition.
Persecution and racial laws
In 1938 Trieste’s Jewish community counts about 6000 members. In September Mussolini proclaims racial laws for Trieste which debar Jews from all civil rights meaning expulsion from schools, public jobs, the army, management and property of firms, the theatre and film industry. Their real estate property is confiscated.
These radical changes force many people go into exile and in 1939 the Jewish community is dissolved.
The Zionist group helps many people to save themselves from Nazi persecution by embarking more than 500 Italian Jews and 200.000 refugees from Eastern Europe on ships of the Lloyd Triestino sailing to Palestine.
The racial laws are accompanied by a growing anti-Hebraic sentiment among the population, resulting in abuse, looting of shops owned by Jews, and even the destruction of the Synagogue by members of a fascist action squad in 1942.
Nazi occupation
On September 8, 1943 Trieste is put under direct German control.
On October 9, 1943 the first round-up of Jews takes place: sick and old people are torn with unspeakable violence from the “Pia Casa Gentiluomo” on Via Cologna.
During November and December of 1943 the Risiera di San Sabba, former rice processing plant and then barracks, is transformed into the only extermination camp in Italy.
In April 1944 the cremator is lit up. Estimates are that at the Risiera four to five thousand persons were killed, most of them political opposers, Italian partisans, Slovenians and Croatians, whereas the number of Jewish victims amounts to less than one hundred because the San Sabba camp represented a temporary situation before deportation to Auschwitz and Dachau.
The Shoah (meaning the extermination of Jews under Nazism) deeply hurts the Jewish community, leaving only about four to five hundred Jews in town, worn out by the events, to be found by the soldiers of the Eighth British Army.
The Synagogue remains intact during the years of persecution due to the Nazis using it as deposit for books and works of art.
On May 7, 1945 the Temple opens its doors.
It is difficult to estimate the number of Trieste Jews who were deported, but 1000 is a probable number. Only 12 persons return from the extermination camps, but thousands of survivors who hid in Italy or emigrated to Switzerland come back to Trieste and many of them emigrate to Palestine or the Americas.
