Mauthausen-Erinnerungen 7: Aldo Carpi

This book should never have come into existence. Aldo Carpi (1886–1973) was a renowned painter and professor working at the famous Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan when, in early 1944, he was arrested on account of his anti-fascist leanings and a racist denunciation. A short time later he was deported to the Mauthausen and then the Gusen concentration camp. It is nothing short of a miracle that Carpi – at 57 already relatively old, as an artist unused to hard physical labour, and as an Italian doomed to die in the quarries of the Gusen concentration camp – survived imprisonment.

Thanks to acts of solidarity on the part of his fellow prisoners, the discovery of his artistic talent by members of the SS, and not least thanks to his will to survive and bear witness, he was liberated from the Gusen concentration camp. Thus his diary also survived, which he had begun in the camp in secret despite the risk of death, and along with it numerous drawings made during imprisonment and shortly after liberation. The diary and the drawings are not only unique documents of their time but they testify to how, in the midst of Nazi terror, it was possible to retain one’s humanity.

First published in 1971 by his son, the well-known children’s author Pinin Carpi, the diary has since been reprinted several times in Italy. It is now available for the first time in German translation with reproductions of 40 of the artist’s drawings.

The diary is available from the Mauthausen Memorial Book Shop or via the website of the new academic press. The publisher’s website also offers a sample of the book.