Sheet by: Isabella Insolvibile

General data

Town: Torino

Province: Torino

Region: Piemonte

Location/Address: Varie - Torino

Type of camp: Work camp

Number: 112

Italian military mail service number: 3100

Intended to: troops

Local jurisdiction: Difesa Territoriale Torino

Railroad station: Torino

Accommodation: military quarters

Operating: from 05/1943 to 09/1943

Commanding Officer: Captain Secondo Marenco (May – June 1943); Major. Ugo Rossi (August – 8 September 1943)

Brief chronology:
May 1943: the PoWs arrived at the camp.
8 September 1943: mass escape.

Allied prisoners in the Torino camp

Camp’s overview

PG 112 Turin was a “scattered” structure, formed by various detachments but without a “base camp”. Information on this camp is limited. The Allied PoWs arrived in May 1943 and were still in the detachments at the moment of the Armistice. They worked on farms (roughly 100 worked in the La Mandria estate in the district of Peppinella in Venaria Reale) and brick factories for the S.A. Fornaci Riunite in Beinasco. Two more detachments, for which we do not know numbers, were in Castiglione Torinese and Castellamonte.
After 8 September, most of the PoWs escaped. However, since the local population did not help them, their escape was not always successful.

Archival sources

• Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero dell’Interno, Direzione Generale Pubblica Sicurezza, A5G, II GM, bb. 116, 117, 118 e 140, Verbali e Notiziari della Commissione Interministeriale per i Prigionieri di Guerra
• Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero dell’Aeronautica, Gabinetto, b. 70, 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, H8, b. 79
• Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, L10, b. 32

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,

Stories linked to this camp

George Albert Drew

Edward Henry Duke