PG 70 - Monturano

Sheet by: Costantino Di Sante

General data

Town: Fermo

Province: Fermo

Region: Marche

Location/Address: Molini di Tenna - Fermo

Type of camp: Prisoner of War camp

Number: 70

Italian military mail service number: 3300

Intended to: NCOs – Troops

Local jurisdiction: IX Army Corps

Railroad station: Monturano

Accommodation: military quarters

Capacity: 8000

Operating: from 19/08/1942 to 15/09/1943

Commanding Officer: Col. Enrico Papa

Brief chronology:
10 July 1942: work began on the warehouses of a linen mill to turn them into a PoW camp.
19 August 1942: the camp was opened.
November 1942: some hundred PoWs were transferred from PG 60, Colle Compito (Lucca).
3 January 1943: 500 PoWs were transferred from the closed PG 68 Vetralla (Viterbo).
8 March 1943: an English PoW, Corporal Henry Heyes, was killed by a sentry during an escape attempt.
September 1943: most of the PoWs stillin the camp and were deported by the Germans.

Allied prisoners in the Fermo camp

Date Generals Officers NCOs Troops TOT
1.9.1942   2 137 1235 1374
30.9.1942   5 181 1443 1629
31.10.1942   9 263 2063 2335
30.11.1942   8 378 3729 4115
31.12.1942   8 566 5192 5766
31.1.1943   8 578 5644 6230
28.2.1943   8 691 6615 7314
30.4.1943   5 641 5936 6582
31.5.1943   6 819 6087 6912
30.6.1943   5 830 6158 6993
31.8.1943   13 847 7478 8338
 

Camp’s overview

Monturano camp was established in the summer of 1942 in the district of Molini del Tenna in the municipality of Fermo. The structure, then in Ascoli Piceno province and today in the province of Fermo, was a repurposed linen mill, originally built in 1938 by the Società Anonima Agricola Industriale del Lino of Milan. It was near the Monturano-Rapagnano railway station, on the Porto San Giorgio-Amandola line, and was, therefore, identified as «Monte Urano camp» in the official records.
In July 1942, the linen mill was requisitioned by the High Command, and the external warehouses, at the time open on the sides, were enclosed to become the dormitories. The structure was thus remodelled to fit the needs of a prison camp: a jail, spaces for the guards, and various services intended for the PoWs. The camp was divided into two distinct sectors: one for the Command, the guards and the services for the Italian troops; the other for the PoWs. To prevent escapes, the perimeter walls were raised, and barbed wire placed on top of them. The Italians built cookhouses, an infirmary, outhouses and lavatories. The guards were taken from the Army Corps or those released from active duty as they were considered not suitable physically. They were reinforced by a small number of carabinieri and a few interpreters. When the prisoners arrived in August 1942, the guards’ number rose to 563, including NCOs and privates; some were frontline veterans. In the Italian sector, the mess hall was divided between the NCOs and privates; there was an infirmary and a lavatory; the rest rooms were separated from those of the PoWs, and the soldiers were assisted by a military chaplain, Lt. Mario Scoponi, of Fermo.
On 19 August 1942, although the camp was not yet complete, the first PoWs arrived. These were British soldiers from transit camps in Libya, transported by boat and distributed among various camps in Italy.
At the end of the year, the camp housed almost 6,000 PoWs, mostly British. However, the number included New Zealanders and Irish, three Canadians, two Palestinians and roughly one hundred «white» South Africans, as the records of the time made a clear distinction between them and prisoners of colour. The number of PoWs kept growing until, in March 1943, it exceeded 7,000. In the following months, about a hundred prisoners were transferred to work camps in the north. However, Monturano again became overcrowded in July of the same year, as the Allies landed in Sicily. As a result, many Italian PoW camps in the south were closed, and their «guests» transferred to PG 70. Right before the Armistice, the camp housed 8,338 British PoWs (including 13 officers and 847 NCOs). During this period, the camp reached its upper capacity, and the life of PoWs in these conditions was not easy.
We can get a good picture of the PoWs’ living conditions in the former linen mill’s warehouses thanks to the Red Cross and the High Command’s Ufficio prigionieri reports. According to these reports, the PoWs slept in well-lit dormitories, which were not, however, heated, on wooden cots arranged in double or triple rows, with straw beds, a bed sheet, and two blankets for each PoW. Food prepared by the soldiers, was initially scarce but was later amplified with vegetables and fruits grown by the prisoners themselves in the camp’s vegetable garden. More than anything, however, the Red Cross parcels made a better diet possible. The distribution of the parcels and of the mail was the most anticipated moment of the PoWs’ day. To alleviate the conditions of the prisoners, a small theatre was built, where the camp’s orchestra, formed by the prisoners, could play. Cultural and entertainment activities were publicised on the camp’s bulletin board or in the camp’s newspaper (also produced by the PoWs), The Seventy Times. The camp’s library was also well attended.
Besides recreational activities, some PoWs also worked. Roughly 50 British were used as builders in the camp’s construction site. They were paid, as directed by the Geneva convention regarding working PoWs, according to their qualifications, and were insured in case of a work accident. Others were employed to run the camp: they worked as cooks, cobblers and barbers. Others worked in the carpenter’s shop, wood or food storage, and on maintenance of the living quarters. Small groups of prisoners worked the fields outside the camp. These jobs allowed the prisoners to gain additional pay and fend off the boredom and depression that were common in the PoWs’ lives.
However, the PoWs’ living conditions were not as good as they could have been. The camp was chronically out of water, an issue that the commander tried to fix by building a new water reservoir, which, unfortunately, was never fully functioning. During winter, many PoWs suffered from the cold, as the dormitories were not heated, and many were only dressed in the uniform in which they had been captured, often in Africa, which meant they were ill-equipped to face low temperatures. This caused the rise of infectious and respiratory illnesses. From September 1942 to May 1943, because of the cold, the poor diet, and the still incomplete infirmary, 45 PoWs died. Overcrowding and lack of preventive measures lead to scabies, other skin infections, and the constant presence of fleas and lice. To treat the prisoners, there were five medical officers coordinated by an Italian doctor, while three English chaplains attended to their spiritual needs.
Just as in many other camps, escape attempts were common. The guards immediately discovered one of the first, as two prisoners attempted to leave the camp by hiding inside a vehicle. On 17 December 1942, John Jones was wounded as he tried to climb the fence, while on 8 February 1943, another escape attempt ended tragically, as a sentry shot and killed one of the escapers. In May 1943, an English prisoner, Jack Robinson, killed himself by cutting his carotid artery. Other escape attempts using tunnels were discovered, and those involved were punished with solitary confinement, while the rest of the prisoners were forced to submit to long and excruciating roll calls.
After the Armistice, the prisoners, on the advice of their superiors, remained in the camp, hoping that the Allies would soon reach them. However, the Germans occupied the camp only a few days later. Thanks to the general confusion, roughly 2,000 PoWs managed to escape, while the remaining 6,000 were deported to Germany. Under German jurisdiction and with the collaboration of the Fascist republican federation of Ascoli Piceno, PG 70 continued to operate to hold the PoWs recaptured in the area until the following November.
After the Liberation, the former linen mill was used as «Centro Raccolta e smistamento profughi di Fermo» [Collection and administration centre of Fermo refugees] by the High Commission for war refugees and later by the British military. Later renamed «campo per profughi stranieri di Fermo» [Camp for foreign refugees in Fermo] with the identification number IT89, the Allied authorities used the building to house 2,000 Yugoslavian refugees, mostly Croatian Ustasha (nationalists and pro-Fascists). During this period, the camp’s «Croatian chapel» was set up and a fresco representing the Virgin Mary, the symbol of Croatia, a white and red shield, is still inside one of the warehouses.
In the summer of 1947, the structure was run by the International Refugee Organisation and was renamed: «Centro raccolta profughi stranieri» [Collection centre for foreign refugees], identified with the number eight. During the winter, the situation became paradoxical, as roughly 500 Jews, mostly survivors of the Nazi-Fascist persecutions, were forced to live alongside more than a thousand Croatian Ustasha, many of them guilty of war crimes. After that, the camp was used to house Italian refugees from the eastern border. On 23 April 1950, when the last refugees left the camp, it was finally closed.
The buildings returned to the Società Linificio Canapificio Nazionale of Milan and were used to store wheat farmed in the surrounding area. In 1955, the site was sold to the Società Conciaria Marchigiana, which used it until 2003, when its tannery closed down as it could not face foreign competition on the leather market. The Adriatica Spa subsequentially bought the site in 2006.
In 2016, the Fermo township and the association «Oltre Conceria» involved local schools in a project called «La memoria viva dell’ex conceria [The living memory of the former tannery]», producing a documentary, a theatrical piece, and a mural.
After a long period of abandonment, in October 2021, a project to reclassify the area was approved. This includes the preservation and evaluation of what is left of the former PG 70.

Archival sources

Bibliography

Online resources

Stories linked to this camp