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Here we see a group of younger girls at a summer ca,p adopting heliotherapy. It was taken in Bergamo (1937). Many Italian summer camos were located along the coast to tke afcance of the sea and beaches. Bergamo is a beautiful medieval city, located in the foothills of the Alps, about as far away from the coast as you can get in Italy. This is why the camp only had a very small pool that the girls had to take turns dipping into every day. We were not sure what group was running this camp, perhaps the municipality. Our Italian conributor tells us, thatthe camp was organized by the local committee of the Italian Red Cross, but ontolled by the Fscist Party, probably local Party officials. We can see a Fascist banner in the background with the words 'Fascista' and 'DUCE'. Duce was theItalian tern for leader meanig Mussolini. OUR Italian reader tells us, " On the banner, not all the letters can be read well. I interpret it this way: 'colonia fascista el**o*** DUCE sei t.' It could be: Fascist heliotherapy colony: DUCE. We can see that almost all of the girls are shirtless. Although they are quite young, primary school age, this was not very common even at this age. We notice that in the center a girl is a little shy, covering her chest in front of the photographer. The idea of heliotherapy was for the children to be exposed to the sun asmuch as possible with as little clothing as possible. An Italian reaser tells is, "There was even a few camps which had the total absence of clothing, especially when swimming. This was fairly common earlier in the century, but by the 1930s was very rare sich as boys in southern Italy, ignoring regultionsad taking dips in city fountains on hot days. ." Our Italian contribor writes,"As you rightly wrote, it was still fairly common for children, especially boys, to swim without clothing in the erly-20th century. However, by the 1930s, this was no longer common, t least officially. Even in the 1950s, boys in Rome who went swimming on hot daty in the Tiber or bathed in fountains and had no swimming suits, took off all their clothing, even though it was officilly formally forbidden. Here at thisgirls' camp it was different because it was required. Italian Fascism usually respected Catholic modesty rules, but the pagan roots of Fascism sometimes emerged. the samewas true of the NAZIs. Heliptherapy has more of a scientific basis."
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