ITALIAN P.O.W AND INTERNEES IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (a speech by Emilio Coccia)
I thank you and your Society for the invitation to address you this evening. It is indeed my privilege to be here and share with you some results of a research started 15 years ago and still ongoing, the research for the story (and glory) of the Italian POWs and Civilian Internees in Southern Africa during WW 2. By saying Southern Africa I mainly refer to the than Southern Rhodesia and the Union of South Africa, as these two Countries had a sound economy, a good infrastructure and of course great potential for the production of food and other commodities necessary to support the war effort. It all started in September 1939, with the German invasion of Poland and the consequent declaration of war to Germany by Great Britain and France. As part of the Commonwealth nations‟ contribution, training camps for troops were established in South Africa, where over 200 000 men received proper military discipline, and in Southern Rhodesia, where the Empire Air Training School, inter alia, was set up to prepare pilots and crews for the war. Salisbury, Umtali, Gwelo (old names) and Bulawayo where the chief centres for the training of the principal Units i.e. the S. Rhodesia Reconnaissance Regiment, the Rh. African Rifles, the S. Rh. Light Battery, the S. Rh. Signals and the S. Rh. Medical Corps. The top serving unit was the R. Rh. Air Force, who gallantly fought in Ethiopia, Somalia, Libya, Egypt, Italy and Normandy, earning a significant number of medal awards. I should also highlight the contribution of Rhodesian women to the war. The Women Auxiliary Service employed a thousand ladies… in the production of munitions, in the Police, in the Air Force and in many other support activities, such as clerical, parachute packing, driving, instruments‟ repair, general reserve and hospital nursing, to mention the major ones. A further positive result of these “Lady Soldiers” engagement was that an equal number of men could be released… to be trained for direct war duties. The S. Rhodesia war effort was also extended to the policing outside the borders: for instance, a large contingent of B.S.A. Police rendered an excellent service in helping… with the disarming of bands of irregular E/Africans, still very active after the end of the conflict in Abyssinia, Eritrea and Somalia, in 1942. The Police was also involved in the POW, Internees‟ and Refugees‟ Camps. I must explain, at this point, the definition of the three different kind of detainees: [POW: Military personnel (combatants) captured as a result of war action. The Chaplains, Medical Officers. And Medical Orderlies were not considered as POWs by the Geneva Convention and enjoyed a special status ( kind of humanitarian workers, identified as Protected Personnel); REFUGEES: Civilians seeking protection and willing to be put under the British safeguard; INTERNEES: Civilians refusing to co-operate with the Detaining (British) Power and unwilling to seek its protection (ref. as compulsory/non-voluntary Evacuees). GENERAL POLICY of internment: SEPARATION: Italians from Germans, Militaries from Civilians, Women and Children from Men, Officers from O/Ranks. 1
As from the start of the hostilities some Internment camps were set out in the British colonies; Germans and Italians residing or caught on Commonwealth soil were arrested, detained provisionally in Police cells, and than moved into the above Camps, either within the same Country or in the neighbouring territories. The first contingent of Italian Internees arrived at Durban harbour, from Kenya and Tanganyika, in July 1940 and the prisoners were interned at Koffiefontein Camp (OVS) pending the construction of more camps in S. Rhodesia. Here, two camps had already been established for Germans, nine months earlier, and were more or less full to capacity. The two camps were: the No. 1 “General” and the No. 2 “Tanganyika”, located both in Salisbury (now Harare); they hosted about 260 men, women and children (the first Camp) and 600 women and children (the second Camp). The bulk of Italian Internees arrived in South Africa from Eritrea between January and April 1942, transferred to S. Rhodesia and accommodated in three camps prepared for them. Sadly, the very last contingent of Civilians, arriving from Massawa (Eritrea) and also bound to S. Rhodesia never reached the S. African shore. The S.S. “Nova Scotia”, carrying 780 Italian Internees, was torpedoed in November 1942 by a German submarine and sank near the Natal coast, taking with her most of the lives on board. The other three Internment Camps just mentioned, specially set out for the Italians were.. No.3 “Gatooma” (now Katoma) No.4 “Umvuma (now Mvuma) and No.5 “Fort Victoria” (now Masvingo). There at Fort Victoria a special “Extension Camp” was also opened to accommodate the so-called “irreducible” or “criminals”, men who either refused to co-operate or tried, whenever possible, to escape into Mozambique. It is here at No.5 “Extension Camp” that a beautiful Chapel was built by the Internees and was dedicated to S. Frances, the Patron Saint of Italy. This little church is a real work of art, with frescoes and fine soapstone ornaments and features. In 1953 two wings were added to the main building and here the Remains of 78 Italians, died in captivity, are interred. Among them are two children, brother and sister: Roberto and Remigia Vitale, aged 2 and 7, who died in a fire at No.1 Salisbury Camp in September (22) 1942. It happened when a structure with thatched roof and walls made of grass, utilised as kindergarten, was set alight by accident and eleven children, nine of them German, died as a result.
The total number of Italians accommodated in the S. Rhodesian camps was therefore in the region of 5 300, including men, women and children: 1 600 were detained in Gatooma, 1 500 in Umvuma and 1 500/1 800 in Fort Victoria No.5 and No.5A camps; the others were staying at Salisbury. The Camps were provided with basic sporting structures, grounds for gardens and open spaces for general use. In these open spaces some enterprising detainees built their own makeshift workshops, the most communes being Barber, Blacksmith, Cabinet-maker, Shoe-maker and Taylor. That was the best possible way not only to keep minds and bodies sane but also to earn a bit of money for their own necessities, awaiting the end of the war and their returning home. The war against Italy and Germany ended at the beginning of May 1945 but the Internees, with just a few exceptions, had to wait for the repatriation until the sea transport became available.
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That materialised only in December 1946 and convoys full of Italians left S. Rhodesia during that month in the directions of Mombasa, Dar es-Salaam, Beira, Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) and Durban, where ships were awaiting in the harbours to transport them back home. The last train left Fort Victoria carrying to Durban the so called “irreducible” “criminals” “fascists”, to be embarked on the S.S. “Asturias” and to leave Southern Africa with a couple of thousand POWs and other Internees from camps in South Africa. They disembarked the 21st January 1947 in Napoli where, after six very long years of captivity, they finally became free men.
Different in many ways was the situation in the Union of South Africa where up to 120 000 men were detained, due to the geographic and other practical factors, for periods varying from six weeks to six years. The first Italian POWs arrived from Egypt at the beginning of April 1941. They had been taken prisoner during the Operation code-named “COMPASS”, the first British offensive carried out from Egypt into Libya, that started in December 1940 and lasted until the end of February 1941, with the capture of the Cirenaica region and of 60 000 Italian troops. This 60 000 men were first moved and kept in temporary Camps in Egypt; subsequently they were transferred to India (the Officers) and to South Africa (the Other Ranks and the Soldiers). By July 1941, 20 000 captives landed in Durban harbour and were sent by train to the Transvaal, in a Camp that was to be the biggest POW camp of WW2: ZONDERWATER, near Pretoria. The name in Afrikaans literally means without water but, being crossed right in the middle by a permanent stream of water, other explanations are given for this denomination. [Water supply for steam locomotives + Mampoer for the farm workers]. Zonderwater was a State owned farm, utilised as a training camp for the U.D.F. from September 1939 until July 1940, when the troops were transferred to Kenya and deployed on the war front, in Somalia and Abyssinia. An existing basic infrastructure, like water reticulation, stores and a small hospital, was the starting point for developing what was later called “the City of Prisoners”: 14 Blocks each capable of accommodating 8 000 men, with 30 km of roads, a new hospital with a capacity of 3 200 beds and…. all came gradually. At the beginning the POW were lodged in conical tents, eight men per tent with no beds but just palliasses (what meant dust or mud, lice, cold) and also dangerously exposed to lightning. In fact nine of them lost their life and dozens more were severely burnt during the typical thunderstorms of the South African Highveld. But…accommodation was not the only serious problem linked to the disregard of the Geneva Convention. In November 1942 a British commission inspected the Camp and tabled a damning report on the general conditions of the Italian detainees, such as insufficient food and clothing, very poor hygienic conditions, overcrowding, irregular mail distribution and pillaging of parcels from home. Immediate action was taken and the P.M. General Jan Smuts appointed Col. Hendrik Frederik Prinsloo to the top position at Zonderwater. Prinsloo was a wise man who had a personal experience of concentration camps as he himself, at the age of 12, was interned with his mother during the Anglo-Boer war. As a professional soldier (with Jan Smuts he fought the Germans in 3
South West Africa, during WW1) Col. Prinsloo considered the Geneva Convention “the finest Gentleman‟s Agreement ever entered upon by nations”. His principle was “discipline coupled with human understanding, firmness mingled with kindness and deep desire to take into account the peculiarities of the Italian character and the inevitable suffering of life behind barbed wire”. He believed that every nation, after the war, would be internationally tried and judged by the way their POW had been treated. There again his wisdom won and in 1947 he was part of the South Africa delegation at the United Nation conference on the thorny subject of POW. As from mid December 1942, when he took command of Zonderwater Camp, the situation there started to change substantially. The construction of permanent barracks was started, so that the POW could sleep on beds with mattresses and be protected from the lightning under corrugated iron roofs. The previously mentioned New Hospital was erected in less than a year and was completely manned by Italian Medical Officers and nursing Staff. Theatres and laboratories were providing the best possible care for the unfortunate patients: Operating teams were on 24-hours stand-by and Dental, X-Rays and Physiotherapy departments, Bacteriological Research and Gastroenterology laboratories were also fully functioning. It is worth mentioning, in this regard, an important research in the field of Dermatology, carried out by a team of Italian M.Os., and the special updating Medical Courses, held at Zonderwater. Furthermore, a cooperation agreement was entered between the POW Hospital and the University of Cape Town, so Medical students were frequently visiting Zonderwater. Now, according to a recent testimonial by an eminent Italian Professor, who was at that time a Sergeant of Cavalry, 3rd year Medical Student and Assistant Pathologist at Zonderwater Hospital, a group of students, early in March 1942, arrived from Cape Town to assist to an unusual Postmortem. One of them was standing out for his personality and his inquisitive character, and he started to bombard the Italian Pathologist with questions concerning the heart, the valves and the vascular system, asking him to please start the autopsy from the cardiac muscle. The young man was so enthusiastic about it that the Pathologist agreed with pleasure and started his work with the dissection of the heart. Thirty years later, when the world media announced the news of the first successful heart transplant in medical history, the former Sergeant of Cavalry Mino Andretta, by than a well known Senior Physician in Italy, suddenly realised that he had probably helped the young Christiaan Barnard in his passionate research on the top human organ. Colonel Prinsloo put special endeavour in keeping this multitude of young men both mentally and physically busy, no one having any idea as to when the war would be over, and he knew very well that idling could be the worst enemy of the prisoners. One of his first priorities was than to encourage and also materially assist the willing Italians to practice sports, attend schools and workshops and to perform any artistic or practical skill that they could develop. The already existing Primary school was trebled in size and three other schools were opened. Secondary courses were also instituted and many text books (of agronomy, hygiene, chemistry, geometry, electrical and mechanical technology) were manually compiled by Chaplains, Medical Officers and by the numerous University students within the ranks. The results were excellent. 9 000 illiterate men learnt to read and write, half of them obtained the Primary School Certificate of attendance, which was validated in Italy, after repatriation, and helped many of them to find a job. 4
Another very important institution, attended by those willing to learn or improve manual and creative works, was the “H. F. Prinsloo Vocational Centre”, where up to 800 prisoners made objects of their choice in very large workshops, using proper tools and electrical machinery. The most attended activities were cabinet making, wood carving, manufacturing of steel and silver artefacts, while other specialised crafts included making of stringed instruments (violins, mandolins, banjos) and of wind instruments (bagpipes, recorders, ocarinas) bookbinding, model making and watch making. Apropos of this last activity, an ingenious Prisoner made a beautiful watch, with the mechanism spring-loaded with a hair from the mane of a horse, and sold it to one of Guards for a couple of Pounds. After a day or two the mechanism stopped functioning and the Guard went back to the Prisoner to ask what was wrong. The crafty watchmaker opened the case, showed how to re-wind the spring and gave it back to the Guard with a big smile, asking him very friendly what did he expect to get for just a couple of Pounds! Staying with craftiness, another Prisoner managed to make dozens of One Pound notes, starting by impressing on paper, with a nicely carved wooden cliché, the front and back images of the Pound and doing by hand the touching-up. When the trick was discovered (by accidentally comparing two notes) no legal action was taken because on the notes, with exactly the same font, instead of “I promise to pay the bearer etc” was written, in Italian “I have done this not to commit fraud but to alleviate my poor health conditions…” and not signed the Governor, but signed an Italian POW. Part of the Vocational Centre was dedicated to the studios for artists (mainly painters and sculptors) where men with a vocation for art could study together (and exchange knowledge and ideas) under the supervision of a well known painter (and Medical Officer at Zonderwater). The sculptors produced real masterpieces with plaster-of-Paris, sandstone, clay or concrete, while the painters expressed their inspiration with oils and water colours, with charcoal and with colour pencils. The artefacts made by the POW were displayed at the annual Arts and Crafts Exhibition, in a building especially provided inside the Camp, and were sold to the public, attracted by word-ofmouth from all over the Transvaal. Interesting to know are the socio-economic rules instituted by the prisoners themselves about the sales of the objects: the proceeds were split: 50% to the maker and 50% to the POW Welfare Fund. [The money was than utilised for buying more and better raw material and spectacles/dentures/special medicines or food supplements for the needy etc.] [ I can say without reserve that the beauty and quality of the artefacts was great. Several hundreds of these objects have been donated, in the past 20 years, to our Museum. Most of them are still in excellent conditions, witnessing the outstanding craftsmanship of that simple, but really talented people.]
The Commander of the camp was also a keen sportsman (rugby player, trained boxer and winner of several swimming trophies) and went out of his way to procure the necessary equipment to perform all possible kind of sports. The most popular, of course, was the football. Leather balls, nets, boots and other paraphernalia were quickly gathered and within a year the number of football teams grew from 13 to 28 Thanks to the availability of equipment, mostly donated by the various Italian Welfare organizations, the Vatican and the International Red Cross, the enthusiastic Prisoners could perform all different disciplines of Athletics, and also Netball, Basketball and even Fencing (here I have to mention something special!). 5
One of the fencing trainees, named Ezio Triccoli, was clearly gifted and in a very short time became one of the trainers. He also designed and manufactured a prototype grip for the swords, which 10 years later was adopted internationally and officially recognised by the Olympic Committee. [This prototype, by the way, is one of the relics on display in our Museum] Back home in 1946, Ezio Triccoli started in due course his own school of fencing and a few years later three of his pupils (Stefano Cerioni, Giovanna Trillini and Valentina Vezzali rewarded their Master by becoming Olympic Gold medalists. Great support was also given to the Boxing and the presence in the Camp of several well known Italian Title fighters attracted the interest also of the South African public. Historical was the match performed on September 8, 1943, for the Middle Weight Title between Verdinelli and Manca, attended by 15 000 spectators (both POW and S.A. fans). Historical because of the date (announcement of Armistice = start of Civil war); also historical for the way it concluded: Verdinelli was a staunch Fascist, Manca a convinced Royalist: when the gong sounded the end of the last round they hugged each other in genuine brotherly way, showing that Sport could be stronger than Politics or Ideologies. But, in spite of that spontaneous display of unity, the mood in the Camp changed and the ideological divide became deeper. Many Prisoners remained loyal to their beliefs, others didn‟t give importance anymore to Principles or Ideals and tried to adapt to the new situation. The possibility of Outside Employment became a kind of “safety valve” and was part of the solution to the dilemma created in half a million POWs (worldwide) by the signature of the Armistice. In South Africa several thousand Italians had already left Zonderwater, a year earlier, to be assigned to the construction of some very important mountain passes. These projects had been approved by the S. African Parliament in the early 20‟s, than shelved for lack of funds. The construction plans were re-proposed in 1941, when the POW‟s providential labour became available. So, between November ‟42 and October ‟45, 1 500 POW built the new road with a tunnel at Du Toit‟skloof, on the Cape mountains, producing a shorter and much easier connection between the Lower Karoo and Cape Town. In the same period, an equal number were employed to open the new mountain pass between the town of George and the hinterland, as well as felling trees for the mining and construction industries in six Forestry camps, also in the area surrounding George. To control the movements, the logistics and the medical needs of that mass of people in the area, a new Camp was opened at Worcester and not less than 10 000 POWs were administered by that Camp. With such a big labour force available, highly skilled and pretty inexpensive, also the Provincial Authority took advantage of the situation and hired hundreds of men to carry out improvements to other mountain passes, such as the Sir Lowry‟s and Houhoek (between Somerset West/Hermanus) the Tradow Pass (in the Swellendam/Barrydale area) Chapman‟s Peak (just North of Cape Point) and Bain‟s Kloof (between Wellington/ /Worcester) – to mention the major ones. Other very important projects considered by the S.A. Government for the production of food and commercial farming were the Irrigation schemes in semi-desert area. The largest of them all was the Orange River farm settlement, near Upington, where the POW provided, in less than 4 years, a reticulation of canals to distribute water over 1 500 square Km of land. And in the spare time, the Italians built a big church in that town, the Cathedral of St. Augustine. 6
This area is now producing, by the way, fruits and wines that are exported also to Italy. In that same period, south of Upington, some 1 000 POWs completed three huge Farm settlements: the Vaal/Harz [Warrengton] the Rietrivier [Kimberley] and the Olifant River [Vredendal] in the Northern Cape, while at Loskop, east of Pretoria, 39 000 ha of land were reclaimed for agriculture. The construction skills of the Italians were also utilised to erect Government buildings, churches, schools, mansions, all structures which are still utilised and even displayed as an example of outstanding architecture and workmanship. Some of them, like the „Madonna delle Grazie” church in Pietermaritzburg and the Dutch Windmill and Sunken Garden in Johannesburg have been proclaimed National Monument. The majority of the POWs that opted for Outside Employment were allocated to the agricultural sector of the economy, as the production of food, both for the regional consumption and for the war front was a top priority. In addition, than, to the 5 000 Italians working on Government projects, another 25 000 of them were employed by thousands of farmers in the four Provinces of the Union. They were all young men, in good health, very keen workers, who wanted just to get out from the camp and try to earn a bit more money, better food and, above all, more freedom and some peace of mind. The goodwill manifested towards their employers, coupled with the display of some skills unknown in South Africa, was immediately noted, appreciated and (why not?) also exploited by the farmers. Consequently, notwithstanding the Law prohibiting their employment as artisans or for any specialised work, the Italians were assigned to any job that they could perform. As a result, in the farms were developed some works never seen before in the Country, such as roman style aqueducts, silos for the storage of green fodder, production of seeds in a backyard laboratory, open-air cooling systems for borehole water and some architectural structures, possibly empirical but certainly sound and also very pretty. Cabinet makers produced a lot of the finest furniture ever seen, tailors and shoemakers provided new wardrobes to entire families and blacksmiths, mechanics and other technicians attended rapidly to any possible breakdown occurring in the isolated farms. In a nutshell, it was a real blessing for the South African food producers to be able to employ this inexpensive though highly skilled labour. Now the Italians, as I said, were young, full of life, easy to adapt, so it didn‟t take long for the majority of them to be assimilated, in spite of the Emergency Law, by the Boers, who were in general more sympathetic towards the Italians than towards the British. They were asked to prepare Italian food, to sing and play music, they were even allowed to sleep in the farmhouse, which was a punishable crime in the Union. In remote farming area, teams of POW played football tournaments on Sunday a/noon, exchanging venue from farm to farm and being spoiled with wine and fat cookies proudly supplied by the generous farmers. Briefly, the Italians became part…of the families every day‟s life. In these conditions it was easy for the sparks of love to become fires. Numerous marriages took place, both formal and “casual”, and hundreds of half Latin babies were born: the Italian blood and the Italian culture streamed into South Africa. At the end of the war the prisoners, as required by the Geneva Convention, had to be sent back to their Country and by February 1947 all, but 900, had been repatriated. These 900 were applicants for permanent residence in the Union whose application had been approved. Thousands more had 7
applied to stay and settle in the Union…but some opposition, both in South Africa and in Italy, made it impossible to accept all the requests. However, the door for immigration was left wide open and within a few years the presence of Italian settlers grew from 2 500 to over 40 000. The economic, social and cultural impact was great; highly appreciated was in particular the artistic input and influence derived by the presence of the POWs. Gregorio Fiasconaro, one of the 900 who managed not to be repatriated in 1947, became a renowned tenor and, later on, lecturer of Music at the U.C.T. and full time Director of the Opera School, earning eventually the title of “the Father of Opera in South Africa”. Another artist of note was Armando Baldinelli, a POW Officer who settled in S.A. in 1953 and immediately started to produce the most beautiful Mosaic Murals, becoming famous for the works he made at Hide Park shopping centre and at Jan Smuts airport in Johannesburg, but specially for the imposing and unforgettable mural “The Wings and the Waves of Music” at the State Theatre in Pretoria. And perhaps the greatest of the names in the history of modern sculpture in South Africa was Edoardo Villa, whose hundreds of statues are displayed all over South Africa and Italy and after whom the Art Museum at the University of Pretoria has been named. Edoardo Villa died in May last year and his ashes lay inside the cemetery chapel, at Zonderwater, under the gigantic Crucifix that he had made 65 years earlier. To sum up, and to conclude, the presence of such a great number of Italian POWs and Internees marked a milestone in the history of Southern Africa, as it did initiate the process of transferring new technology, new art and culture, new blood and new visions regarding the economic, political and human relations. And if one also looks at the other side of the medal, one can see that Italy and Europe have likewise benefited from this epic story by becoming exporters not only of music and fashion but also of outstanding quality tiles, top class motorcars and of the ever popular, delicious “spaghetti”.
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