A fishing village on the north-west coast of Sicily and a district in the Bergisches Land: Trappeto and Solingen-Ohligs are linked by one of the most remarkable emigration stories of the post-war German-Italian era. From the early 1960s onwards, a large proportion of the population of this village of around 3,100 souls on the Gulf of Castellammare migrated to Solingen, with lasting consequences for both places. Today, the Trappetesi and their descendants have left such a strong imprint on the Solingen district of Ohligs, through their language, their associations and their culture, that Ohligs is colloquially known as "Little Trappeto". A portrait of the Sicilian village, with a look at its German connection.
Trappeto: Fishing Village on the Gulf of Castellammare
Trappeto is situated on the north-west coast of Sicily, within the Metropolitan City of Palermo, roughly 52 kilometres west of the regional capital. As the official tourism website of the Metropolitan City of Palermo notes about the village, it has around 3,100 inhabitants and borders the neighbouring municipalities of Balestrate, Partinico and Terrasini. The local population works primarily in agriculture and fishing, with the local fish market considered one of the village's tourist attractions.
Its position on the Gulf of Castellammare, one of the most geographically distinctive bays in Sicily, lends the village a particular scenic appeal. Sand, beach and coastline are today the mainstays of a modest but growing tourism economy, one that appeals to visitors wishing to experience Sicily away from the major tourist centres. Well-known places such as Castellammare del Golfo, Scopello and the Riserva Naturale dello Zingaro are nearby, while Palermo can be reached by car in around an hour.
From Sugar Cane to Fishing
The village's name points to an economic pastthat had little in common with today's fishing industry. As the local specialist association GAL Golfo di Castellammare documents in its municipal portrait, the landowner Francesco Bologna established a sugar cane processing facility at "Trappetum Cannamelarum" in 1480, from which the village developed over the course of the 16th century. In the early 17th century the settlement was temporarily abandoned, and resettled at the end of the 18th century, this time with a focus on viticulture. It was not until 1954 that Trappeto was granted the status of an independent municipality.
It was only when fishermen later settled in Trappeto that the economic focus shifted from sugar cane to fishing. The village came to wider attention in the 1950s through the social activist Danilo Dolci, who campaigned in Trappeto and the surrounding region against poverty and the passivity of the authorities. His public acts of protest drew international attention to the social situation in western Sicily.
Emigration to Solingen from the 1960s Onwards
The turning point in the village's modern history came with the German Wirtschaftswunder. From the 1960s onwards, Sicilian families left their homeland in large numbers in search of work. Whilst most Sicilians emigrated to a variety of destinations across Europe and beyond, the Trappetesi concentrated to a striking degree on a single German town: Solingen in the Bergisches Land, specifically the district of Ohligs. As the online project Trappeto-Solingen by Michaela Böhm and Stephan Morgenstern describes— a project that was awarded the Grimme Online Award in 2016, these emigrants took advantage of the industrial structure of the "City of Blades".
In Solingen, the new arrivals found work above all in the cutlery and blades industry, the city's historic economic backbone, as well as at the company Bremshey, where the well-known collapsible umbrella Knirps and the serving trolley Dinett were among the products manufactured. Almost all the Trappetesiwho left their homeland ended up in Solingen-Ohligs, a degree of concentration unusual for emigration movements, and one that continues to define the bond between the two places. Alongside the Trappetesi , people from neighbouring Sicilian towns such as Partinico, Balestrate, Giardinello and San Fratello also came to Ohligs, so that over the decades one of the most remarkable Sicilian communities in Germany took shape there.
Ohligs, Shaped by Its Sicilian Community
Those who walk through Solingen-Ohligs today experience the legacy of this emigration story in everyday life. The district remains strongly shaped by its Sicilian residents, with Italian bakeries, restaurants, ice cream parlours and food shops keeping the culinary traditions of the communities of origin alive. As the German-Italian association Solitalia documents on its website, Solingen ranks among the cities in Germany with the highest proportion of Italian residents. The Trappetesi form a significant, though by no means the only, part of this community, complemented by migrants from other Sicilian towns and from further Italian regions.
A particularly visible expression of the Italian presence in Solingen is the annual Good Friday procession of the Missione Cattolica Italiana. Each year, the Passione Vivente, under the direction of Falk Witzmann, transforms Solingen-Wald into Jerusalem: starting from the Walder Stadtpark, the Via Crucis passes through several stations before reaching the church of St. Katharina on Weyerstraße. Around 60 active participants from the Italian community, including actors and extras, bring the event to life, with the role of Jesus recast each year. Rehearsals begin as early as January, and during the procession, prayers and songs are performed in both Italian and German. The consistently strong attendance of several hundred spectators demonstrates how deeply rooted the Italian community is in the life of Solingen.
The connection between the two places is maintained not only through family ties but also through active community work. The association Solitalia and the civic movement Amicizia italo-tedesca foster the exchange between Trappeto and Solingen through travel, cultural events and joint projects. Many of those who once emigrated continue to this day to travel back and forth between the two places, or have returned to their homeland after decades in the Klingenstadt, whilst their children and grandchildren have grown up in Solingen and continue to shape the identity of the Ohligs district.
An informal town friendship
The close relationship between the two places has, in recent years, developed into an informal Gemellaggio, a town friendship. As the regional paper PalermoToday reports on the most recent official visit, the then Mayor of Solingen, Tim Kurzbach, was a guest in Trappeto on 20 July 2025, where a newly designed statue of the Madonna di Fatima was unveiled in front of the Chiesa Madre together with the Mayor of Trappeto, Santo Cosentino. A miniature of the same statue is to be placed in Solingen-Ohligs in honour of the emigrated Trappetesi. Kurzbach left office on 1 November 2025 and was succeeded by Daniel Flemm (CDU).
A note from the editors
The editorial team of vivereinitalien.de is currently based in Solingen. From this proximity to the Sicilian community of the Ohligs district, we follow the connection between the two places with particular interest, and many Trappetesi are among our personal acquaintances. On 20 September 2026, we ourselves will be moving to Italy, to the Campi Flegrei near Pozzuoli in Campania. In our coverage of Italy, Trappeto is one of the places where the German-Italian post-war story remains concretely visible, illustrating particularly well how profoundly the emigration movements of the 1960s continue to shape both countries to this day.
