Difendiamo il Giardino a memoria del D​.​P. Camp UNRRA 34 dagli idrovolanti

Let's defend the memorial Garden of the UNRRA D​.​P. Camp No. 34 from hydroplanes (English text below)

      I sottoscritti cittadini con il presente appello intendo sottoporre all’attenzione del SS.LL. la necessità che il “Giardino della memoria e dell’accoglienza”, collocato in Lungomare La Marmora in S. Maria al Bagno, tra il ristorante Ginetto e il distributore di benzina ENI con tutto il tratto di costa prospicente venga tutelato e adeguatamente valorizzato per il suo alto valore simbolico che esso rappresenta, sia come sito dedicato al ricordo del Campo Profughi dell’UNRRA n. 34 per l’accoglienza dei rifugiati ebrei sopravvissuti alla Shoah e rifugiati jugoslavi del periodo 1943-1947, sia come area verde a servizio della popolazione e turisti delle marine di Nardò.

A tal fine si chiede che non sia realizzata la Stazione per idrovolanti, prevista sul tratto della costa suddetta, in quanto andrebbe a determinare un rilevante impatto ambientale, con interdizione della balneazione, penalizzando la vivibilità del territorio e la possibilità di balneazione per circa mille metri lineari, con un raggio di 500 m dal punto di ammaraggio degli idrovolanti.

Nardò, lì 05.09.2020Ai sensi del DGPR n. 2016/679 e al d. lgs. 101/2018 di adeguamento della normativa italiana e del “Codice in materia di trattamento dei dati personali” del 2003 alla normativa comunitaria, si autorizza l’utilizzazione dei dati forniti solo ed esclusivamente per la presente petizione.

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 “Let us protect together the Memory and Welcome Garden “UNRRA DP CAMP no. 34” in Santa Maria al Bagno, Nardò, Italy

Between 1943 and 1947, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration created in the territory of Nardò Municipality, in particular  in Santa Maria al Bagno (a coastal neighborhood), the Displaced Persons Camp no. 34 in order to provide the necessary assistance to the Central European Jews freed from the extermination camps on their way to the nascent State of Israel (USA, Canada, Australia, etc.). The local population, in the wake of religious and cultural tolerance, collaborated in this generous action taken to alleviate the suffering of the exiles, by  offering their houses  or enabling them to freely profess their religion in their premises. For this role Nardò was awarded with the Golden Medal for Civil merits by the President of the Italian Republic  Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, on Jan. 27, 2005.

In order to keep alive the memory of this unique positive historical circumstance Professor Pierluigi Congedo together with other friends realized the “Garden of Memory”, transforming an abandoned and littered area in a Garden dedicated to the UNRRA DP Camp no. 34. He started a few months after his friend, Ottfried Weisz, an Holocaust survivor from Vienna born in 1933, who lived in St Maria between 1945 and 1947,  after the murder of his entire family (father, mother and a sister and 9 more siblings in Auschwitz) found relief and the beginning of a new life in Santa Maria. The Garden received local and also international donations of plants, was visited by prominent persons and was sacred by the burying of a Zohar book on its premises.

Nardò Municipality has now decided to install on the same premises a Terminal for seaplanes in the same area of the Garden, on the basis of EU funds (FESR-Interreg). Such a project, with high environmental impact and unclear collective financial return, was only recently  published Jakob Ehrlich, a survivor of the Holocaust who was hosted in Santa Maria, the Consul of Israel an thousands of Citizens, Tourists and Visitors supported several appeals and petitions to save the garden and find another location with less impact.

We are asking your support to protect the Garden and to ask the competent authorities to  review the Seaplane project in order to relocate it and possibly terminate it.