MEIS, National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah: interior, Ferrara, Emilia Romagna, Italy, 2016...

The MEIS was realised in a building in via Piangipane which is part of the complex consisting of three blocks, enclosed by a double wall. The Museum is therefore the result of a work of conversion of the judicial prison in Via Piangipane which was built between 1908 and 1912 based on a design by the engineers Bertotti and Facchini of the Civil Engineer Office. During the twenty years of fascism it became a place of detention for many anti-fascists. After the fall of the regime, on July 30,1943, 88 political prisoners were freed. In the aftermath of September, 8 1943, with the German occupation and the birth of the Italian Social Republic, the prison was filled with anti-fascists, to which several Jews had joined. On October 7, 1943, 34 people were arrested and imprisoned here, including Rabbi Leone Leoni and Eugenio Ravenna, nephew of the former mayor Renzo. The writer Giorgio Bassani, was arrested in May 1943 with Matilde Bassani. Following the bombings of 1944, the prison became unusable and resumed its functions as a district prison in 1945, maintaining them until 1992. Photos taken just after the restoration of the building in 2016. Now the museum houses a permanent collection of documents and objects belonging to the Jewish community in Ferrara and temporary exhibitions.