“Don Mario Grugni was a highly-esteemed pastor for many years in Ceranova. But the most important was Don Piero Angelini, pastor of Vairano, about 4 kilometers from Ceranova. Here was the camp of our Pows. Don Piero was an agent of the Ufficio Assistenza Prigionieri Alleati of CLN, and he saved many Pows (I have his memoirs).
“I think Don Piero and Don Mario certainly collaborated with each other to assist and save the local Pows. Also, Don Piero hid Pows in the bell tower and in the attic of his church in Vairano.”
A Don Mario Grugni memorial plaque in Ceranova, Italy. The two photos are of Don Mario Grugni at different ages. Continue reading →
I’ve recently received a great deal of help and guidance from Massimo “Max” Piacentini, a researcher at the Istituto Pavese per la storia della Resistenza e dell’età contemporanea.
In 1991 Bill Armitt (right) took his wife Hilda back to the scene of his escape, where they met with Dr. Domenico Lunghi (at left)—photo by Hilda Armitt, courtesy Victoria Theatre Archive
Istoreco (istorecopavia.it), founded in 1956, is part of the national network of the Ferruccio Parri Institute. An important leader of the Italian Resistance, Parri understood the importance of preserving the documents of the resistence for posterity. In 1943 he charged his friend Giuseppe Bacciagaluppi with creation of the Ufficio Assistenza prigionieri Alleati of the CLN (Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, or National Liberation Committee). The organization saved more than 1,500 Allied escaped POWs by guiding them to Switzerland. Documents relating to these saved POW are preserved in Fondo: Bacciagaluppi at the Istituto Parri of Milano. Istoreco of Pavia keeps documents such as the arrest records of POWs in Provincia di Pavia and an archive of oral sources, including interviews with local helpers.
“My current research,” Max explained, “concerns the Pow camps in the Pavese area and the helpers who offered assistance to the fugitive prisoners after 8 September 1943. In the course of my research, I came across several Pows from camp PG 59 who were transferred in the spring of ’43 to the labor camps of Pavese, in particular to PG 146/23 Landriano.
Portrait of Robert Dickinson by D. Stredder Bist, 1942
Robert Dickinson’s prison camp diary, Servigliano Calling, is filled not only with details about Robert’s daily life as a prisoner (a daily activity log, letters and cards sent and received, parcels received, lists of contents of Red Cross parcels, and more). It contains items of artistic merit—34 poems by several PG 59 camp poets, with titles in beautiful calligraphy and hand-lettering—often accompanied by clever illustrations.
The most impressive illustrations are the front cover, the title page, and a full-page portrait of Robert signed by Sergeant D. Stredder Bist.
Although we are only six months into 2023, Steve Dickinson will no doubt look back on this year as a banner year for discovery of information about his uncle, POW Robert Dickinson.
Robert Dickinson (Lincoln, UK) joined Lincoln Territorial Battery 237, Royal Artillery, as a gunner in 1938. He first saw action in France, where in 1940 he was involved in the evacuation from the beaches of Dunkirk. He then served in North Africa, where he was taken prisoner in 1941.
Robert was interned in PG 59 Servigliano (18 January 1942–24 January 1943), PG 53 Macerata, and finally PG 112/IV in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, from which he escaped in 1943.
For 13 months, Robert was sheltered by the Bauducco family of Gassino Torinese. In October 1944 he joined the local partisan resistance and fought against the fascists and German forces. He was killed while fighting with the partisans on 3 March 1945.
After Robert’s death, the diary he kept, Servigliano Calling, was sent to his family in Lincoln. It reached the family in November 1946, some 18 months after Robert’s death.
The authorities provided the family with general information concerning Robert’s death, but for years Steve has yearned to know more about his uncle’s final months and greater detail about his death.
At the end of the war, the deaths of many POWs killed while on the run were investigated as war crimes. Steve wondered—had Robert’s death been investigated?
We didn’t know the answer. Until this year, that is.
From the beginning of our sojourn in the Cremona Valley, we two ex-POWs gradually merged with the neighbourhood. Neighbours became aware of us, began to pass the time of day with us, talked about us in their homes or with other neighbours. Many people came to know of us, coupling a protesting Piet Van Rensberg with me as the ‘due inglese di casa Tamburrini’ (the two English of the Tamburrini Family). He gave up, as a bad job, explaining the difference between an inglese and a sud africano.
Since the beginning of January ’44, Allied offensives against the Gustav line had been going on. They halted at Monte Cassino. On January 22nd came the landings at Anzio but 35 miles from Rome. The American commander was overcareful in advancing and a great opportunity was lost. February was spent in making the bridgehead safe for the Allied troops who had landed. On February 15th the monastery at Monte Cassino was bombed and shelled, but the Germans held on. In the fighting for the monastery the 1st German parachute division were heavily engaged and fought tenaciously. When I was recaptured at the Gran Sasso the previous September, the young German who spoke 5th form English had been in that division; I wonder if he survived.
I left the Caprese Michelangelo district and decided to continue in an easterly direction in order to place myself alongside the main crenella or ridge of the Apennines proper and then use its southerly direction to bring me to the front line. I was entering the Val Tiberino, the valley formed by the River Tevere (Tiber), and would have to cross this and the Strada Statale which hugged its course in order to carry out my intention. The Tiber, of course, flowed down to Rome—exciting thought—and the road, too, joined the Via Flaminia at Terni and this ancient route was the old entrance to the capital. With thoughts of helmeted and kilted Roman legions, Horatio, toga clad citizens and the like running through my mind I cross the Tevere a few kilometres south of the townlet of Pieve San Stefano.
From the first moments of being taken prisoner we, who had been expecting imminent death or dreadful wounding, were given a sudden and unexpected reprieve. As one German said to me, “For you the war is over, but I go on and on.” The neutrality of camp life seemed to confirm that, as in 1914–1918, being a POW meant immunity from the perils of war for the duration, that we were meant to return to wife, girlfriend, or mother. As prison became less disagreeable and its monastic nature appeared to distance us from the struggle against Naziism, so we slowly accepted its placid regime and grew less inclined to consider re-entering the fight to rid the world of totalitarian frightfulness. Belsen was not known to us and the Holocaust barely a whisper. Now, at a stroke, we were back in it as though the drive and spirit of our old company commander, despairing of our inertia, had booted us back to duty.
I can claim no experience in authorship of any extensive written work beyond responding to my Tutors’ demands in Teacher Training College days for a pocket thesis on some facet of education and an attempted booklet aimed at introducing Geology to 14-year-olds. The first was accepted as adequate and the second judged to be too ponderous for 14-year-olds to stomach.
Camp 59 Survivors 