Italian prisoners of war in Australia
During the course of the war, Great Britain and their allies captured in Ethiopia and North Africa approximately 400,000[citation needed] Italian troops, who were sent to POW camps all over the world, including Australia.
[2] Then, after Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, the Australian authorities took between 13,000 and 15,000 Italian prisoners out of the POW camps and put them to work.
An apology was given by the Government of South Australia, but no attempts by either party and it seems unlikely from the coalition, whose recent deputy leader MP Michael McCormack said it was unnecessary to apologise to European nationals, interned by the Federal Government during the Second World War and "Look, it was considered the right policy at the time", along with "I think we sometimes need to just move on with these sorts of things".
When Italy entered World War II aligning itself with Germany on 10 June 1940, the Australian government labeled citizens of Australia from Italian descent as a threat to the nation.
[21] There were also three hundred Aboriginal residents of the Cape York mission, a missionary community run by a German pastor, who were imprisoned.
[22] Thirty nationalities detained in the Australian internment camps during World War II, with the majority of prisoners being Italians, Germans, and Japanese.
[24] The Australian government used eighteen larger internment camps as the main facility to detain majority of the “enemy aliens”, prisoners of war, and internees until the end of WWII.
The internment camps became the epicenter of diverse culture, ethnicity, and social status often leading to disputes breaking out between the communities, like fights between Italian Royalists and fascists.
[29] There were numerous internment camps built in Australia during World War II to house Italian POWs.
[38] The remains of the Cowra Camp still exist in a rundown condition of ingrown trees with bits of bricks, stones, and other pieces of the infrastructure.
[39] The Loveday Camp was located near Barmera, where the freshwater Lake Bonney is situated,[40] which had six separate compounds to accommodate Italian, German, and Japanese internees.
[47] The majority of captured WWII Italian POWs were treated well and respected fairly across Australia by the Australian guards of the internment camps and the local community.
[48] Since the 1929 Geneva Convention was implemented prior to the creation of the WWII internment camps in Australia, there were not many significant incidents of mistreatment by the Australian guards.
[48] The policy created from the 1929 Geneva Convention was followed closely by the Australian guards, but there was still some discrimination faced by the Italian POWs.
