It was the largest of the fifteen internment camps established by Benito Mussolini between June and September 1940.

The camp was located in Ferramonti, a rural locality 6 km in south of Tarsia, by the river Crati.

Rabbi Riccardo Pacifici was the spiritual advisor to the Jewish inmates from 1942 to 1943 although he was himself eventually removed and killed in Auschwitz.

In some cases, internees were invited to the local town of Tarsia where there was a need for skills that were abundant in the camp which comprised among others, doctors, carpenters, engineers, dentists, lawyers, musicians,[5] artists.

Although many internees chose to remain in relative safety of the camp until its closure in December 1945, others fled north only to encounter Germans in the occupied northern Italy.