Sheet by: Costantino Di Sante

General data

Town: Mortara

Province: Pavia

Region: Lombardia

Location/Address: Mortara - Mortara

Type of camp: Work camp

Number: 146

Italian military mail service number: 3100

Intended to: troops

Local jurisdiction: Difesa Territoriale di Milano

Railroad station: Mortara

Accommodation: military quarters

Capacity: 250

Operating: from 03/1943 to 09/1943

Commanding Officer: Col. Giulio Trinchieri

Brief chronology:
March 1943: the camp was established.
April 1943: the first 230 white South African PoWs arrived at PG 146.

Allied prisoners in the Mortara camp

Camp’s overview

In January 1943, the PoW office of the Italian Chief of Staff decided to establish a PoW camp in Mortara, to coordinate all the work detachments in the Pavia province. The camp was opened in March as PG 146.
Mortara, rather than being a “classic” PoW camp, was a sorting centre for PoWs, who were housed in the camp for a short period and then transferred to the detachments. The camp’s command, the administrative offices, and the guards’ dormitory were located in the Palazzo Cambieri, a historic building in the city centre owned by the municipality. The Palazzo had already been used to house some soldiers previously. During the Second War of Italian independence, it had housed the troops of the Austrian General Giulay before the battle of Palestro. This time, the PoWs were housed in the local school, the civic theatre and a gym.
There is no specific information on the work detachments subordinated to PG 146, but they most likely numbered about 30. Historian Roger Absalom identified the following detachments in the Pavia province: 146/5 in Sartirana Lomellina, 146/23 in Landriano, 146/25 in Chignolo Po, 146/26 in Torre d’Arese, and 146/16 in a place called «Casino Rinaldo». According to Absalom, Mortara supervised also the detachments in Lodi, Massalengo (Lodi), Pandino, Gradella, and Agnadello in the Cremona province. All the PoWs were employed as farmers.
Work conditions in all detachments are likely to have been acceptable. However, it was reported that, in one of them, the commander went out of his way not to improve the PoWs’ conditions, refusing to ask for the delivery of Red Cross parcels and arresting the PoWs who complained.
After 8 September 1943, before the Germans’ arrival, the camp commander warned the PoWs, suggesting they escape to the farms and get help from the locals with whom they had worked. After the war, Palazzo Cambieri, the seat of the camp’s command, became the municipal library «Francesco Pezza» until 2011, when it was turned into a seniors’ centre

Archival sources

• Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero dell’Interno, Direzione Generale Pubblica Sicurezza, A5G, II GM, bb. 116, 117, Verbali e Notiziari della Commissione Interministeriale per i Prigionieri di Guerra
• Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Onorcaduti, b. 1
• Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, L10, b. 32
• Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, N1-11, b. 1243
• Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, H8, b. 79
• The National Archives, WO 224/179
• The National Archives, WO 344/9/2

Bibliography

• Absalom R., A Strange Alliance. Aspects of escape and survival in Italy 1943-45, Firenze, Olschki, 1991 trad. it. L’alleanza inattesa. Mondo contadino e prigionieri alleati in fuga in Italia (1943-1945), Bologna, Pendagron, 2011
• Insolvibile I., I prigionieri alleati in Italia 1940-1943, tesi di dottorato, Dottorato in "Innovazione e Gestione delle Risorse Pubbliche", curriculum “Scienze Umane, Storiche e della Formazione”, Storia Contemporanea, Università degli Studi del Molise, anno accademico 2019-2020,
• Tenconi M., Prigionia e fuga dal pavese, in «Studi e ricerche di storia contemporanea», 92, 2019 pp. 49-57

Online resources

• https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=428 , in campifascisti.it

Stories linked to this camp

Rowland Hewison