A work of “total” art. Phenomenology of the Italian memorial in Auschwitz

Abstract

In 1978 the Italian Association ANED (national association of people formerly deported to nazi camps) starts the design and implementation of a Memorial, to tell the story of the Italian deportation, shaping it with respect to the inner space of one of the existing blocks on the site of the extermination camp in Auschwitz (Block 21). From the first project idea, the art potentiality was assumed as the most suitable instrument for the construction of memory. The Memorial was configured, in fact, as a true work of total art, coincidence of intention and perfect synthesis of the various arts in compliance with the same program: a choral work, a work of artists and intellectuals who, each according to his own jurisdiction, had composed it like an “organic” system in a deep sharing of the ultimate meaning of the thinking and doing.