User talk:Anti raid shelter

Air Raid Shelters in Venice WW2
Many air-raid shelters from WWII still exist, scattered across Europe. However they are disappearing rapidly, reappropriated, forgotten, and demolished. Usually during the aerial bombings people protected themselves in underground shelters: this was impossible in Venice. So, the municipality started to construct air-raid shelters at the center of main “Campi”, or near factories, schools, hospitals. Often they were constructed in hurry and with very poor materials: the concrete was made by sand, little stones, pieces of wood and fragments of bricks. Actually Venice was never bombed, but the presence of these structures disseminated in the Venice Laguna still remind of the time people was rushing out from homes looking for safer places where to recover

One example can be found on Giudecca Island. It was built to protect factory workers and their children working at the Junghans factory. This was originaly one of the lagest manufactures of clocks in europe, but made fuses for bombs during the war. It now lies derelict on the edge of a modern housing complex.

Other examples of these facinating architectual structures can be found in the Arsenal and even on the Lido.

There is currently a project exploring how this unique and little known part of Venice`s history can be promoted and preserved, as part of a larger international project on WW2 shelters across Europe.

www.recall-dow.eu/soundscape