Camp PG 112/1 Turin Ponte Stura

Sixteen prisoners from the camp were rescued the day immediately following the armistice by Sig. Mario Baldi, who lived about five minutes from the camp. He took them to his house where he supplied them with civilian clothes and then, helped by his friend Pierino, who worked as a carter, he accompanied them to a wood between Baldissero Torinese and Cordova, and continued to support them for months, also resorting to collections from friends and acquaintances.

In October 1944, following an incursion by the Black Brigades of Chieri, the fugitives dispersed and were assisted by various families in the area. The families who hosted them treated them as if they were their own children. The list of their names was destroyed by Signora Baldi when her husband was forced to flee because he was wanted by the Turin fascists.

 

Camp PG 112/2 Venaria Reale - La Mandria  (Cascina Peppinella)

At the fall of fascism on 25 July, the Italian flag was hoisted by order of the estate owner; after 8 September the camp was dissolved and both prisoners and soldiers dispersed. Some of the soldiers tried to make their way home, others went up into the mountains where they helped form the first partisan bands; some remained at Peppinella, where they had work and protection throughout the clandestine period, until the end of hostilities.

Of the prisoners, seventeen made it to Switzerland, seventeen to France, and one to the Allied lines. Most of them, however, remained near to La Mandria for a time and a few until their liberation. Helped by the population and the Administration, they built hiding places in the woods, dug caves and set up camps with tents. Only one of them, voluntarily staying behind in the farmhouse, was captured by the Germans in a surprise raid  carried out a few days after the dissolution of the camp. At La Mandria the population tacitly agreed to offer the British prisoners accommodation, food and clothing. The owner [...] made arrangements for them to be assisted and helped [...]. Money and aid in kind were provided ...he also arranged to have all the camp equipment distributed among the prisoners, the soldiers of the guardhouse and the civilians, before it could be requisitioned by the Germans . The weapons were partly destroyed and partly hidden and none fell into German or fascist hands.

The prisoners, whilst sheltering a few hundred metres from the farmhouses, visited the families who lived there, and when it rained they stayed overnight in their barns. Any help given to the prisoners represented a grave danger for all, from the landowner to the employees and from the share-croppers to the tenants. And when the German and Republican control tightened and La Mandria was the subject of reports, threats and raids, the POWs were largely forced to seek less-exposed shelters in more secluded areas.

 

Camp PG 112/4 Gassino (Castiglione Torinese)

Giulio Giordano, a guard at the camp, remembered that

''On 8th September there was the armistice: they were afraid, but so were we, because we were left without orders. – – On 9 September I went to back to Turin [...]: on the way we saw some German trucks. We wondered why they were still in Italy and didn't understand that they were occupying the territory. When we returned to the camp we already knew that the military had been disbanded, and on phoning the Turin Headquarters we were informed us that none of the commanders were there any more. What did we do? We opened the camp: the prisoners fled and so did we. I had obtained some civilian clothes from some people in Gassino, I got on the tram and went to Turin.''

 

The prisoners spread out into the surrounding area and hills (notably towards Castiglione Torinese, Berzano S. Pietro, Vernone, Avugliano, Marentino, etc.), helped and given shelter by the locals as long as the situation permitted. Then some were taken up to the partisan bands in the mountains, towards the Po Valley in the direction of Barge, and in the Lanzo or Canavese valleys; some were accompanied to Switzerland and, later, to France. It is not always possible to ascertain whether they were helped by simple citizens or by organizations such as the Committee of National Liberation, the partisans, or the Italians in the service of the Allies (IS9, "A" Force , SOE, OSS, etc.).

 

Camp PG 112/5 Castellamonte (locality Spineto)

The fifty men of the work detachment are remembered by Signor Carlo Guerra from Turin, who lived near the camp during the period in which he had been evacuated from Turin. With the consent of the Commanding officer, Lieutenant Gatti, he occasionally brought them baskets of fruit and flasks of wine. When the camp was disbanded after 8 September he was among those who gave them food and civilian clothes. He later learned that thirteen (eighteen,  author's note) of them had been rounded up by the Germans and sent to Germany; moreover, there was a rumour  in Spineto that an escaped prisoner who had become ill had died.

The camp was looted. Signor Paolo Crestetto, who was a boy in 1943, lived in Spineto near PG 112/5 and could see the camp from his house. After the escape of the prisoners and the guards following the 8 September, he remembers seeing the locals storming the camp in search of food, blankets and anything that could be of use at a time when everything was scarce.

 

Camp PG 112/9 Beinasco

Testimony of  corporal-major Raffaele Ferraris:

In the evening when the armistice between Italy and the Allies was made public I was finally able to leave the POWs free to circulate. A few went out, some wanted me to accompany them to Signor Dalmetti to thank him for the kindness shown to them during their captivity...

One thing of the utmost importance that needs to be pointed out is this: after the signing of the armistice, no order ever reached me from Headquarters concerning the treatment of the POWs, indeed, the following day S/Ten. Andreotti asked Headquarters for permission to let the POWs out for a walk, accompanied by unarmed Italian soldiers. I learned that he received an order from Headquarters to let them out for a couple of hours a day but nothing else.

The only phonogram that came to me from Headquarters was the one saying that we had to react to every attack made on us by the Germans, but with only 90 bullets, each individual guard having been allocated only 15, it seemed to me that it would have been of no avail to have us killed by the Germans. Not only did our commanding officer agree with me, but so did all the POWs.

Of the 50 POWs, at the time of the armistice five of them wanted to come with me; to the other 45 I gave a map and instructions as to how to reach Swiss or French borders , which was what they wanted to do. I later learned that several of them were picked up by the Germans and fascists in the woods of Stupinigi, where they were temporarily in hiding, and where the population of Beinasco, Borgaretto, Mirafiori and Stupinigi had brought them food and clean clothing for about 20 days.

 

SOURCES: Claretta Coda Helpers & POW I prigionieri di guerra alleati e i loro soccorritori italiani in provincia di Torino (e dintorni) Edizioni Corsac, 2016

http://www.cittametropolitana.torino.it/cms/risorse/patrimonio-artistico-culturale-storico/dwd/biblioteca-storica/curiosita-digitalizzate/A_STRANGE_ALLIANCE_CLARETTA_CODA.pdf

ISTORETO, Fondo Borghetti, C FB 1b