Stazione centrale di Milano, Binario 21

E' il binario da dove partivano i treni per Auschwitz. In questo luogo stanno costruendo un Memoriale della Shoah che dovrebbe essere pronto per il giorno della Memoria, il prossimo 27 gennaio. Ma per ora ne parlano di più in America che in Italia. "For nine years, a foundation and a pair of Milanese architects have been working to transform the grim, cavernous depot - all but abandoned after the war - into the Memorial of the Shoah.

When finished, the project will take up 75,000 square feet and will include a Jewish-themed library rising three stories within the vast space, as well as an auditorium, a room for silent contemplation and a cluster of open-sided cubes for showing video testimonials by European Holocaust survivors.

The names of deportees from the station, about 2,000, will be inscribed on a wall behind a preserved track from the depot, and four windowless wooden train cars will sit atop a second track. An elevator platform that was used to lift such cars up to the main station will be visible at one end of the track, as will the opening in the ceiling far above it, an ominous rectangle of light the exact dimensions of a train car. It was through this opening that the cars would emerge into the busy station before setting off unnoticed for Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen or Italian camps like Fossoli, near Modena.

The memorial, which is about a third built, has been plagued by delays. But Roberto Jarach, vice president of the Foundation for the Memorial and the head of Milan’s Jewish Community, a membership organization, said plans called for part of the site to open to the public in time for International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27". nyt.