Detention areas during Fascism - UPI

Cuneo’s UPI – a police branch that conducted political investigations during the Italian Social Republic, also known as the Republic of Salò – had its headquarters in the building situated on the corner of Corso IV Novembre and Via XXVIII Aprile. In the years 1943 – 1945 the building was the operating centre of anti-fascist repression and detention while nowadays it houses the offices of Confartigianato - an association created to serve artisans and small businesses. A Royal Decree dated 6 th November 1926 set up local UPI, political investigation departments tasked with national security. In 1943 they were reorganized as they became a means of coercive territorial control besides being charged with investigating, scrutinizing, arresting and reporting suspects. UPI also had to supervise the good behaviour of the inhabitants of Cuneo with the help of a network of informers, so they unscrupulously held suspected people in unlawful detention, tortured, murdered, shot them, or deported them to Germany, in a bloody system of unjust retaliation. Their main aim was to make prisoners speak and tip off on local antifascists and partisans so that they could be found out and punished. In the building, dating back to the 1920s, some renovation works had to be carried out and all the cellars were converted into prison cells, where suspects were detained before being questioned on the upper floor. In these places, they specifically tried to destroy the dignity of their victims by humiliating them, and women and men were subjected to unspeakable brutality and tortures. There have been many detailed accounts of horrifying interrogation methods and terrible atrocities that were regularly being committed at UPI. Within the walls of these interrogation rooms suspects were bound head and foot, they were made to drink oil and were subjected to ice-water showers. In the night between 2nd and 3rd December 1944, Duccio Galimberti was taken into custody at UPI where he was questioned and tortured before being taken to Tetto Croce, where he was murdered. But UPI was not the only torture centre in Cuneo during the Second World War since also the cellars of the Primary School in Via XX Settembre were converted into prison cells or used for military accommodation.