This historic hospital was inaugurated in 1922 and named after the Carpi-born Bernardino Ramazzini, a pioneer of occupational medicine; the day after the announcement of the Armistice, it was requisitioned by the Germanic Command, which had quickly taken control of the territory, and used for the accommodation of soldiers and the sheltering of Germanic wounded.
Only one of the hospital's four pavilions was left as an auxiliary hospital, to meet the health needs of the population and to provide medical care also to the political and racial internees from the nearby Fossoli concentration camp. Previously, in the summer of 1942, one of the pavilions also housed British soldiers destined for the Fossoli camp who were seriously injured and could not be treated in the infirmary of that prison camp set up for them. After 8 September 1943, in parallel with the occupation of the camp, the Nazi authorities imprisoned and deported the British soldiers who were hospitalised and the Italian soldiers on guard duty at the hospital.
In September 1943, following the occupation of the hospital by the German authorities, several sick people were sent back to their homes to leave space for the Germanic wounded: a plaque was placed at the entrance of the hospital with the words "LW Orstlazarett - Local Hospital of the LuftWaffe".
Under Nazi management, several inmates of the Fossoli concentration camp, reopened in December 1943 as a camp for the internment of Jews and politicians, were admitted to Ramazzini. It was the camp doctor himself who referred to the hospital the seriously ill who could not be treated in the camp infirmary or injured during the heavy bombing that did not spare the barracks of the Fossoli camp. Testimonies document that sending the internees to the hospital could constitute an indirect way of protection and help. The need for more beds to hospitalise the growing number of German soldiers and the arrival from the Rizzoli Institute in Bologna of many wounded soldiers led the German Command to open a further hospital facility in the summer of 1944, housed in school buildings in the town. Due to the intensification of Allied bombing in the area, the hospital had to be equipped as a first aid centre for air raid wounded, with a dedicated team of doctors, nurses and porters.
Given its use, the Ramazzini hospital suffered much damage during the Nazi occupation and was looted of materials and equipment before being abandoned by the Germanic command. Restoration in the 1950s made it fit again to resume its role as an efficient hospital facility for the Carpi community.
