PG 64 - Colfiorito

Sheet by: Costantino Di Sante

General data

Town: Foligno

Province: Perugia

Region: Umbria

Location/Address: Colfiorito - Foligno

Type of camp: Prisoner of War camp

Number: 64

Italian military mail service number: 3300

Intended to: NCOs – Troops

Local jurisdiction: XVII Army Corps – since June 1943, Comando Territoriale Corpo d’Armata di Roma

Railroad station: Foligno

Accommodation: huts

Capacity: 1500

Operating: from 10/1942 to 12/1942

Commanding Officer: Captain Tullio Chechin (October 1942 – January 1943); Major Gioacchino Mandini (February – September 1943)

Brief chronology:
4 October 1942: 200 British PoWs arrived at the camp from PG 54, Passo Croce (Rieti).
13 October 1942: the number 64 was assigned to the camp.
December 1942: the camp became an internment centre for Yugoslavian civilians.

Allied prisoners in the Foligno camp

Date Generals Officers NCOs Troops TOT
31.10.1942     2 98 100
30.11.1942     2 98 100
31.12.1942     2 98 100
 

Camp’s overview

The buildings of the Colfiorito camp were very old. In 1882, on land known as «Camp S. Pietro», in the district of Foligno, the Genio civile built nine warehouses for military drills during the summer. The area was surrounded by barbed wire; outside of it, two more buildings were used as an infirmary and a cookhouse. After the First World War, the warehouses returned to being state property until August 1939, when the Interior Ministry used them to intern some 30 Albanians following the Italian invasion of Albania. However, since the buildings were not suited to face the winter, the ministry decided to house the prisoners in the homes of some local families.
Nevertheless, the site was left empty only for a short time. In July 1940, as Italy entered the war, it was reopened as an internment camp for civilians. Until mid-January 1941, the camp housed roughly 150 people: anti-fascists (among them Lelio Basso and Carlo Venegoni) suspected of being spies, «foreigners» of the Venezia Giulia, common criminals, and Romanies.
The camp was closed again in the winter, and the internees were transferred. However, as the war dragged on, the Genio militare decided to use it as a PoW camp. This required some adjustment works, which continued until 14 September 1942, when the Italian army staff (SME) ordered the transfer of 100 PoWs (53 British and 47 South Africans) from PG 54 Passo Corese (Rieti). The PoWs, chosen among those who «volunteered» to be transferred, arrived in Colfiorito on 4 October. For three months, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War, the camp was operational as PG 64. During this period, a new camp was built in addition to work done to the old structure. This comprised seven wooden huts and a barn and was erected on the hill next to the existing buildings. Thanks to this enlargement, the camp could house 1,500 PoWs.
On 24 December 1942, Colfiorito was closed as a PoW camp. In January 1943, still under the Ministry of War’s jurisdiction, it became an internment camp for Montenegrin civilians and was no longer identified as PG 64. The 150 Allied PoWs were transferred to other camps, and 700 Montenegrins were transferred from PG 77 Pissignano. During the following months, roughly 1,000 more civilians captured during the counter-guerrilla operations in the Balkans were brought to the camp. Some were used in the work camp of Ruscio (PG 117) and the detachment of Cittaducale (Rieti).
On 22 September 1943, most of the internees, with the cooperation of the guards, escaped, and many joined the local partisan brigades. Some were recaptured and brought to PG 77 before being deported to Germany. The same happened to the 300 who did not leave the camp in September because they were old, ill, or hesitant.
After the Liberation, it became an encampment occupied by British soldiers who used the wooden huts of the «new camp» as firewood. After the end of the war, the buildings were used by the Italian Army for training drills. After the earthquake in 1997, the area was given to the Foligno township, which used it to house services and commercial activities. Later, an information office and the Colfiorito natural park museum were opened in one of the restored huts. The two buildings on the outside of the camp’s perimeter, instead, became an archaeological museum.
Since the early 2000s, the Istituto per la Storia dell'Umbria Contemporanea and the Associazione Nazionale ex deportati nei lager nazisti [National Association of Deportees to Nazi concentration camps] carried out didactical and research activities in order to have the former camp recognised as a place of memory. Over the past few years, the Associazione culturale Officina della Memoria di Foligno has been preparing a memorial in one of the surviving military quarters.

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