The “places of memory” and the tourist-cultural potential of historical sites of the concentration camps of Rab, Molat and Mamula.
In the context of cultural tourism – and, in particular, of the so called “slow tourism” – many European countries propose, from a long time, destinations that point to the discovery of “places of memory” of the Second World War. These proposals, especially in Italy, are strictly linked to the notable historiographical increase of the last decades on the most “unwieldy” and for a long time removed from the 1900s History. Such flowering contributed, on one side, to the rediscovery of sites linked to meaningful historical events and to “traumatic memories”, on the other, to the constitution of “networks” aimed to bringing experts and the several organizations which, in various ways, work for the rediscovery and protection of such places. This intervention – after having given some data on “places of memory”, as they’re understood and have established in Europe in recent decades – presents a quick historical overview on the former concentration camps of Rab and Molat (two Croatians islands) and on that of Mamula (an islet of Montenegro): three historical sites linked to the Italian occupation of Yugoslavia (April 1941-September 1943). It faces then its crucial point: an appropriate recovery (structural, conceptual and memorial) of the afore mentioned “places of memory” (starting from the tourist, environmental and memorial practices and policies that interested the three islands so far), in order to a greater and better touristic-cultural use. In conclusion, the essay mentions the “quality” of memory that the accountable people of the three sites – even with their limits of such a complex question – should today strive to pursue.
