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Lucy Salani

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Lucy Salani
Born
Luciano Salani

(1924-08-12)12 August 1924
Fossano, Italy
Died22 March 2023(2023-03-22) (aged 98)
Bologna, Italy
NationalityItalian
OccupationActivist
Known forAnti-fascist activist, army defector, Nazi concentration camps survivor, trans rights spokesperson

Lucy Salani (12 August 1924 – 22 March 2023) was an Italian activist and is considered the only Italian transgender person to have survived the Nazi concentration camps.[1]

Born in Fossano and raised in Bologna, Salani was understood to be a homosexual man before undergoing gender reassignment surgery later in her life. An anti-fascist, she deserted both the fascist Italian and the Nazi German armies during World War II, before getting caught and deported to the Dachau concentration camp in 1944, where she remained until the liberation of the camp by the American troops in April 1945. Following her liberation and the end of the war, Salani lived in Rome, Turin and Paris, before completing her transition in London. She then returned to Bologna in the 1980s, eventually spending the rest of her life in the city.

Salani's life story gained public attention during the 2010s, as writer and director Gabriella Romano dedicated a biography and a documentary to her.

Biography

Early life

Lucy Salani was born as Luciano Salani in Fossano, Piedmont, in 1924.[1][2][3] She then moved to Bologna with her family,[1][4] who had Emilian origins and raised her to anti-fascist values.[5][6] However, Salani was rejected by her father and brothers because of her homosexuality,[7][8] and had to keep her relationships with other men hidden in order to avoid persecution from the fascist regime.[3][5][9]

World War II and deportation in Dachau

In August 1943, following the start of World War II, Salani was called up to the Italian army, as military service had been made mandatory for all young men.[1][6][10] After a failed desertion attempt, she was sent to serve in Cormons, Friuli Venezia Giulia.[10] However, she managed to defect from the army shortly after the Armistice of Cassibile,[1] returning to Bologna and re-uniting with her parents, who had fled to Mirandola.[10] However, being in fear of putting her family in danger, Salani came out of desertion, being subsequently forced to join a group of the Nazi German army in Suviana, where she was assigned to the anti-aircraft warfare.[5][11] However, she successfully deserted once again: after throwing herself into icy water and contracting pneumonia as a result, she managed to run away from the hospital she had been brought to in Bologna.[1][11]

Salani spent the following months living in the city as a prostitute, having even several German officers as clients.[11] However, during a meeting with one of the aforementioned officers in a hotel, the police broke into the building and arrested her after finding out about her desertion.[12] She was subsequently locked up in the cellar of a farmhouse near Padua, where she managed to escape from thanks to a broken lock, only to get caught again in Mirandola.[12] She was then incarcerated in Bologna and Modena, before being taken to Verona, as a criminal case was held against her.[12] Although Salani was originally sentenced to death, she successfully persuaded German general Albert Kesselring to concede her a pardon, being sent to a labor camp in Bernau, Germany, instead.[1][5][12] She managed to escape from the camp, as well,[1] together with another prisoner, who was later killed by German officers during their escape.[13] However, after reaching the border between Austria and Italy by train, Salani got caught once more.[1][13]

As a result, Salani was deported to the Dachau concentration camp, where she got marked with the red triangle, intended for political prisoners and deserters.[1][5][14] Despite being repeatedly tortured by Nazi officers in the camp,[3][9] she survived for six months, until the camp was eventually liberated by American troops in April 1945: at the time, she was 20 years old.[1][6][7] Earlier on the day of her liberation, she survived a mass shooting by the Nazis, as she was wounded in the knee and fell among the corpses of other prisoners, before American soldiers eventually found her alive.[1][5] According to the Italian trans rights organization Trans Identity Movement [it], Salani was the only transgender person in the country to have survived imprisonment and torture in the Nazi concentration camps.[1]

Life after World War II and transition

After her liberation and the end of World War II, Salani worked as an upholsterer and lived in Rome and Turin.[1][5][6] She also traveled extensively, as part of a cabaret group,[6] and often visited Paris, frequenting the local transgender community.[1][7]

In the mid-1980s, Salani moved to London, where she underwent gender reassignment surgery.[1][4][15] However, she chose not to change her legal name,[1][6] stating that it was sacred to her, having been given to her by her parents, and asking why a woman couldn't be named "Luciano".[2]

Late life, public recognition and death

Salani returned to Bologna during the 1980s, in order to take care of her parents, and eventually spent the rest of her life in the city.[1][16] She was also active as an anti-fascist activist, as well as an advocate for LGBT rights.[1]

Her story gained public attention for the first time in 2009, when writer and director Gabriella Romano wrote a biography about her life, named Il mio nome è Lucy. L'Italia del XX secolo nei ricordi di una transessuale.[1][5] In 2011, Romano also directed a documentary film centered around the activist, named Essere Lucy.[6][15]

In 2014, Salani was interviewed by director Gianni Amelio as part of his documentary Felice chi è diverso.[1][6][17] In January 2018, she was invited to take part in a demonstration organized by LGBT rights associations Arcigay and Arcilesbica for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.[6][15][18] On that occasion, she said: «It is impossible to forget and forgive. Some nights, I still dream of the most horrendous things I saw, and I feel like I'm still [trapped] there, and so, I want people to know what happened in the concentration camps, so that it won't happen again».[15][18]

In January 2018, several newspapers, including Switzerland's Le Matin,[4] French magazine Têtu[7] and Italy's Corriere della Sera,[19] reported that Lucy was living in poverty and rejected by many local hospices.[4][7][19] In the meantime, she received help and support from volunteers of the Trans Identity Movement [it].[15][19]

In November 2019, the president of Arcigay Rome, Francesco Angeli, asked Italian president Sergio Mattarella to nominate Salani as senator for life.[15]

In 2021, a new documentary film about the life of Salani, named C'è un soffio di vita soltanto and directed by Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini, was released.[1][20] The documentary, the title of which was taken from a final verse of a poem written by Salani herself, described her everyday life in Bologna and her return to Dachau, where she had been invited for the 75th anniversary of the concentration camp's liberation.[2][21]

In the summer of 2022, she was honored by the city council of Bologna for her activism.[16]

Salani died in the night between 21 and 22 March 2023, aged 98.[1][3][6]

Bibliography

  • Romano, Gabriella (2009). Il mio nome è Lucy. L'Italia del XX secolo nei ricordi di una transessuale (in Italian). Donzelli Editore. ISBN 978-8-8603-6362-6.
  • Romano, Gabriella (2012). Essere Lucy (in Italian). Manifesto Libri. ISBN 978-8-8728-5564-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Filmography

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w "È morta Lucy Salani, l'unica persona trans italiana sopravvissuta ai lager nazisti" [Lucy Salani, the only Italian transgender person who survived Nazi lagers, has died]. Il Post (in Italian). 22 March 2023. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  2. ^ a b c "Le mille vite di Lucy Salani, donna transgender più anziana d'Italia sopravvissuta a Dachau" [The thousand lives of Lucy Salani, the oldest trans woman in Italy who survived Dachau]. Icon Magazine (in Italian). 10 January 2022. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d Minucci, Emanuela (22 March 2023). "È morta Lucy Salani, l'unica trans sopravvissuta ai lager" [Lucy Salani, the only trans [woman] who survived lagers, has died]. La Stampa (in Italian). Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d "Trans, 94 ans, et indésirable". Le Matin (in Swiss French). 15 January 2018. ISSN 1018-3736. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h "Lucy, un omosessuale a Dachau: «Mi salvò l'essere disertore»" [Lucy, a homosexual [person] in Dachau: "Being a defector saved me"]. La Nuova Ferrara (in Italian). 28 January 2018. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "È morta Lucy Salani, la donna transgender sopravvissuta a Dachau" [Lucy Salani, the trans woman who survived Dachau, has died]. Sky TG24 (in Italian). 22 March 2023. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  7. ^ a b c d e "Femme trans survivante de la Shoah, Lucy est refusée par toutes les maisons de retraite". Têtu (in French). 18 January 2018. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  8. ^ Martinengo, Maria Teresa (24 January 2018). "Omocausto, i "triangoli rosa" e lo sterminio dimenticato". La Stampa (in Italian). Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  9. ^ a b "Lucy Salani, la trans più anziana d'Italia sopravvissuta al campo di concentramento: "Io sempre discriminata, ma ero già morta a Dachau"" [Lucy Salani, the oldest trans [woman] in Italy who survived the concentration camp: “I've always been discriminated, but I was already dead in Dachau”]. La Stampa (in Italian). 27 January 2022. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  10. ^ a b c Romano, Gabriella (2009). Il mio nome è Lucy. L'Italia del XX secolo nei ricordi di una transessuale [My name is Lucy. 20th century's Italy in a transgender [woman]'s memories] (in Italian). Donzelli Editore. p. 29. ISBN 978-8-8603-6362-6.
  11. ^ a b c Romano, Gabriella (2009). Il mio nome è Lucy. L'Italia del XX secolo nei ricordi di una transessuale [My name is Lucy. 20th century's Italy in a transgender [woman]'s memories] (in Italian). Donzelli Editore. p. 30. ISBN 978-8-8603-6362-6.
  12. ^ a b c d Romano, Gabriella (2009). Il mio nome è Lucy. L'Italia del XX secolo nei ricordi di una transessuale [My name is Lucy. 20th century's Italy in a transgender [woman]'s memories] (in Italian). Donzelli Editore. p. 31. ISBN 978-8-8603-6362-6.
  13. ^ a b Romano, Gabriella (2009). Il mio nome è Lucy. L'Italia del XX secolo nei ricordi di una transessuale [My name is Lucy. 20th century's Italy in a transgender [woman]'s memories] (in Italian). Donzelli Editore. pp. 32–33. ISBN 978-8-8603-6362-6.
  14. ^ "Dachau, il carcere, l'impegno: le mille vite di Lucy Salani, la nonna trans d'Italia" [Dachau, incarceration, activism: the thousand lives of Lucy Salani, Italy's trans grandmother]. L'Espresso (in Italian). 2 December 2021. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  15. ^ a b c d e f "Appello a Mattarella: "Lucy Salani, trans sopravvissuta a Dachau, sia senatrice a vita"" [An appeal to Mattarella: "Lucy Salani, a trans [woman] who survived Dachau, should be [nominated as] senator for life"]. Today (in Italian). 8 November 2019. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  16. ^ a b Camonchia, Sabrina (22 March 2023). "E' morta Lucy Salani, l'unica trans sopravvissuta ai lager" [Lucy Salani, the only trans [woman] who survived lagers, has died]. La Repubblica. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  17. ^ a b "Felice chi è diverso". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  18. ^ a b "Lucy Salani: "Voglio che si sappia cosa succedeva a Dachau perché non accada più"" [Lucy Salani: "I want [people] to know what happened in Dachau, so that it won't happen again"]. Estense.com (in Italian). 28 January 2023. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  19. ^ a b c "Bologna: Lucy, la trans di Dachau senza casa di riposo: «Per lei non c'è posto»" [Bologna: Lucy, the trans [woman who survived] Dachau, left without a hospice: «There's no room for her»]. Corriere della Sera. 11 January 2018. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  20. ^ a b ""C'è un soffio di vita soltanto": il documentario su Lucy Salani, la donna trans sopravvissuta a Dachau" ["There's only a breathe of life": the documentary about Lucy Salani, the trans woman who survived Dachau]. Metropolitan Magazine (in Italian). 11 January 2022. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  21. ^ "Torino 39 - "C'è un soffio di vita soltanto" - Interviste". Rai Cinema (in Italian). Retrieved 25 March 2023.
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