PG 17 - Rezzanello

Sheet by: Isabella Insolvibile

General data

Town: Gazzola

Province: Piacenza

Region: Emilia-Romagna

Location/Address: Rezzanello - Gazzola

Type of camp: Prisoner of War camp

Number: 17

Italian military mail service number: 3200

Intended to: officers

Local jurisdiction: Difesa Territoriale Milano

Railroad station: Piacenza

Accommodation: military quarters

Capacity: 150

Operating: from 03/1941 to 02/1943

Commanding Officer: Lt. Col. Carlo Biancotti (6.1941 -5.1942); Lt. Col. Vincenzo Guerrini (6.1942-1.1943); Cpt. Alfonso Dazzi (2.1943)

Brief chronology:
March 1941: the medieval castle of Rezzanello, Gazzola, is repurposed to host a few dozens of Allied officers.
August 1941: An American military envoy and the Apostolic nuncio Borgongini Duca visited the camp. Both certified that the prisoners were held in excellent conditions.
February-March 1943: the Allied officers were transferred to Fontanellato. The Rezzanello camp was earmarked for Greek prisoners.

Allied prisoners in the Gazzola camp

Date Generals Officers NCOs Troops TOT
1.3.1942   105   33 138
1.4.1942   105   35 140
1.5.1942   106   33 139
1.6.1942   113   33 146
1.7.1942   98   33 131
1.8.1942   112   33 145
1.9.1942   4   143 147
30.9.1942   109   32 141
31.10.1942   109   31 140
30.11.1942   118   32 150
31.12.1942   126   32 158
31.1.1943   151 1 41 193
28.2.1943   151 1 41 193
 

Camp’s overview

The camp was opened in March 1941 and remained operative for Allied PoWs until February 1943. It was among the first camps on Italian territory. It was intended from the start for officers and their adjutants. The medieval castle had been repurposed many times – before the war, it was the summer residence of a congregation of nuns. It was not the only castle to become a prison camp (PG 12 Vincigliata-Candeli and PG 41 Montalbo are both castles). Even though it was intended for a small number of prisoners and thus a bit “exclusive”, the castle-camp had problems connected with heating (solved at the beginning of 1943) and the uneven arrival of mail and clothing. Overall, life in Rezzanello was better than elsewhere, but this did not limit the escape attempts, which, on the contrary, were frequent.
The officers were allowed to walk outside the camp and visit the church of the nearby village. They even published a newspaper, “The Rezzanello Revue”, and could read books in the vast library of the castle.
Between the end of February and the beginning of March 1943, the camp was earmarked for Greek officers (who were transferred there in April). The Allied PoWs were thus moved to the new camp of Fontanellato (Parma). Among the prisoners at Rezzanello were Dan Billany and David Dowie, who would describe (in The Cage) the “prison blues”, as they labelled the barbed wire disease from which they suffered in the camp:

Walk listlessly through the building and wish to get away, be alone, but it’s impossible to be alone in a prison camp. Friends look sympathetic and try to cheer but they know the mood; they say little and wait for it to pass. Prison blues. Lean from the end window. A lovely day, a lazy day, a hot sun speckling the tree-lined dusty road to the cemetery. A gramophone next door; the same record, the dame crooned sickly sentiment and twenty officers sunk in nostalgia because they remember Frances Day and The Fleet’s in Port Again, and they remember home and they wonder how long [Billany, Dowie, The Cage, p. 162].


No egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions nor war crimes are connected with PG 17. The castle, private property, returned to its previous status after the war. In recent years, it has been used to organise events and ceremonies. At the moment, it is not open to visitors.

Archival sources

Bibliography

Online resources

Stories linked to this camp