[EXHIBITS]

Sant’Anna di Stazzema, August 12 th 1944. The children remember.

photographic exhibit by Oliviero Toscani

"The things which are forgotten could be done again". In this sentence, written by Primo Levi, there’s the meaning of the photographic exhibit by Oliviero Toscani.
In 2003, with his camera on the shoulder, Oliviero Toscani, famous photographer in the world, went through the mule-traks which were already crossed by the SS on August 12th of 1944; in this way, he could to withdraw the Nazi slaughter’ survivors which, in that time were children from 2 to 12 years old.
Toscani said: "The eyes of those people made me see the story of that slaughter, to relive the same fears. So, I decided to photograph the faces of that few children which, in 1944, escaped from the death". Today, the historical documents’ trasmission must be effected through the images. "We live - Toscani continues - in a world made by images, and the young people know everything because they see the images which are becoming the historical memory of the humanity."
So, Toscani was able to give a strong symbolic value to the eyes of those people just through the images; they are, now, elderly, and bringing engraved on theiry face the tragedy which marked their whole existence.
"I want that the human race - the photographer concludes - doesn’t have to keep on being ashamed, but however it can remember".

The photos were exposed in a show and collected in a book entitled "Sant’Anna of Stazzema August 12th 1944. The children remember" (Feltrinelli Editore): the survivor’s closes-up are placed side by side with their short, but intense, testimonies; it’s a precious documentation, made by images and texts, so that "the historical memory of that slaughter, in these times so little accustomed to practice the memory, doesn’t fall in the oblivion and in the indifference". The writer Antonio Tabucchi written the book’s preface. It was also created a complete tape document in DVD of all the testimonies.

The photographic exhibit was inaugurated, for the first time, in the S. Anna di Stazzema’s Historical Museum of Resistance, on August 12th 2003, whic was the 59° anniversary of the slaughter; it was remade, with the addition of further 15 photos and testimonies, on August 2004 which was the 60° Anniversary of the slaughter: in this occasion its opening was attended by Giuseppe Pisanu and Otto Schily, respectively the Italian and the German Ministers of the Interior.

Then, the show has begun its trip in many Italy’s Municipalities, according to a program agreed by Toscani’s art studio and the National Park of Peace.
The exhibith has been housed in the Municipalities of Montalcino, La Spezia (in Allende Center), Piombino and Saronno and in the provinces of Trieste (in the National Monument "Risiera di St. Sabba"), Livorno (in the Villa Mimbelli’s barns)