The General House of Carissimi in Via Aurelia during the Second World War: A place of painful memory and fraternity

Abstract

During the Second World War, the brothers who formed the Community of the General House on Via Aurelia 202 (now 476), Rome, offered their facilities to cater for the war wounded. In the period of 1941-1944, this house became the St. Joseph Hospital and, it was soon Mutilati Center Principe's del Piemonte (Center of Mutilated Princess of Piedmont). Later, in 1944, it became a Lazareth Feld (field hospital), Reich, and finally, after the flight to the Germans from Rome in the 48th British General Hospital. The brothers were recording their experiences as privileged witnesses of the trauma of the war wounded. The house, as a place of pain and fraternity memory saves its files in the effort of a community that during and especially at the end of armed conflict, reconstructs its experience to strengthen their identity and coherence.