On February 23, 1942 the Italian fascist regime established a concentration camp in Gonars, a town with approx. 4,600 inhabitants near Palmanova in the Province of Udine in northeastern Italy.
Most of the prisoners were from present day Slovenia and Croatia. The first transport of 5,343 internees (1,643 of whom were children) arrived two days later from the Province of Ljubljana and from the Rab camp and the camp in Monigo near Treviso.
The camp was disbanded on September 8, 1943, immediately after the Italian armistice. Every effort was made to erase any evidence of this black spot of Italian history. The camp's buildings were destroyed, the materials were used to build a nearby kindergarten and the site was turned into a meadow.
Only in 1973 a sacrarium was created by sculptor Miodrag Živković at the town's cemetery. Remains of 453 Slovenian and Croatian victims were transferred into its two underground crypts. It is believed that at least 50 additional persons died in the camp due to starvation and torture. Apart from the sacrarium no other evidence of the camp remains and even many locals are unaware of it.
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