Visualizing the trajectory of Jews deported from Italy during the Holocaust

One of the specificities of the Holocaust in Italy is that it took place under German supervision through two successive stages: large-scale round-ups at first, primarily carried out by Germans, and systematic search over the entire Italian territory subsequently, mainly by the Italian police. After arrest, Jews were typically successively transferred to several prisons and camps before being deported to Germany by train. Consequently, Jewish victims experienced the Holocaust in Italy differently according to the nationality of their perpetrators, which is correlated to their time and place of arrest. While the spatiality of the Holocaust has recently been the subject of several studies, research related to deportation suffers from the same types of shortcoming that affect the field of migration studies, namely that very little attention has been paid to experience of mobility and to the actual journey between departure and arrival. In order to progress toward the understanding of Holocaust victims experiences, it is critical to address that issue by studying their journey and analyzing the variations between different victims’ trajectories. Using Sankey diagrams and network representations, this article demonstrate that victims trajectories varies according to the nationality of their perpetrator, their time of arrest, their own nationality, and to a certain degree their gender.

Figure 1: Sankey diagram
Figure 2: Forced network diagram
Figure 3: Gender
Figure 4: Victims nationality
Figure 5: Adults and children
Figure 6: Victims arrested in 1943 and in 1944-1945
Figure 7: Victims arrested by Italians and by Germans

Note: If your screen resolution is too small, the figures might not be displayed properly.

Note 2: Parts of the forced network diagram are often displayed out of their visible box. Drag some of the diagram’s nodes to rearrange it.