About Us

Our Story

This collective commitment has an intimate beginning. Elfy Getachew and her family began with almost nothing—only fragile family memories, a single photograph of her great grandfather, Lij Haile Wolde Meskel, with his family in Ethiopia, and the knowledge that he died in exile in Italy—yet these sparse fragments became the impetus for a deeper historical search. Reaching out to Andrea Giuseppini, director of Campi Fascisti, an online project dedicated to documenting fascist camps, they found an immediate and deeply human response: moved that descendants were still searching after so many decades, he devoted himself to archival research in Rome and soon sent Elfy and her family the first documents, reopening a door long thought closed. From there, she cross-checked these official records with notes and books written by other detainees, using their testimonies to reconstruct the circumstances of the arrests, deportations, detention on Asinara, and the events surrounding Haile's death, ultimately allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of this historical period.

Elfy and her children (whose own efforts at tracking down their ancestor were documented in a film: A Place in the Italian Sun) tracked down Lij Haile's gravesite in Sassari. Their success led to subsequent visits to the prison-island of Asinara in August of 2025, joined by many other descendants of detainees. The three-day gathering culminated in a shared commitment to work together with the Asinara National Park Authority and the City of Porto Torres, and the Fondazione di Sardegna, with the support of partners including Sealand – Parco dell'Asinara, AGUA O, and the Rete di Imprese Educando Asinara, on future projects to commemorate this long-forgotten history. Shortly after the August gathering, From Oblivion to Memory was incorporated as a nonprofit organization devoted to carrying this work forward.

Who We Are

We are descendants, families, scholars, and allies committed to documenting and preserving histories that have remained fragmented, silenced, or unrecorded for nearly a century.

What We Know

Following the Yekatit 12 massacre of 1937, hundreds of Ethiopians were forcibly taken from their land and held in detention centers across Italy.

What We Care About

Rigorous documentation, historical truth, human dignity, and intergenerational memory guide everything we do.

Our Partners

We work in collaboration with institutions, researchers, and cultural partners in Italy, Ethiopia, and the diaspora.