Sheet by: Costantino Di Sante

General data

Town: Roma

Province: Roma

Region: Lazio

Location/Address: Cinecittà - Roma

Type of camp: Work camp

Number: 122

Italian military mail service number: 3300

Intended to: NCOs – Troops

Local jurisdiction: XVII Army Corps

Railroad station: Roma

Accommodation: huts

Capacity: 400

Operating: from 05/1942 to 09/1943

Commanding Officer: Capt. Armando Mangini (June – September 1942);

Brief chronology:
June 1942: the camp in Cinecittà was established, intended only for Indian PoWs.
3 January 1943: the first work detachment was established in Villaggio Caroni.
28 February 1943: the second work detachment was established in Case Nuove.

Allied prisoners in the Roma camp

Camp’s overview

PG 122 Cinecittà was among the first work camps in Italy. The PoWs were mainly black South Africans and worked as extras in at least two movies. One of them, the German Bayer 205 (Known also as Germanin), was a propaganda movie financed by the Bayer pharmaceutical industry and was partially shot in Germany as well, using some French PoWs from the Luckenwalde camp. The other movie shot in the «city of cinema» using the PoWs was Harlem, directed in 1943 by Carmine Gallone. For each PoW, the production gave £20 a day to the military administration, while the PoW only got 3 lire, a part of which was deducted to pay for the clothing and the equipment’s wear.
There were also work detachments in Rome. The first one was established in Villaggio Caroni on 3 January 1943, labelled 122/1, where 220 British PoWs worked as builders. In February 1944, 50 PoWs were assigned, under the direction of the Italian Airforce, to the Ditta Fielt Roma to work on Prenestina street in Rome. At the end of the month, another detachment of 50 PoWs (122/2) was assigned to the Azienda Colombo Bona Case Nuove (Rome), where the PoWs worked in the fields.
In the spring of 1943, some 500 black PoWs were still in the main camp and worked as extras. They received a double ration of food and other benefits, such as extra cigarettes.
After some complaints from the PoWs, they received some sports equipment and musical instruments. Also, although the camp commander was convinced that almost three out of four PoWs were illiterate, books were provided in English, Afrikaans, and Sesuto (the censorship office did not admit Zulu). In the spring of 1943, a study was envisaged on the different languages spoken in PG 122 and other camps where PoWs from the British Commonwealth and the French colonies were held. The Foreign Minister appointed Professor Bruno Ducati, an expert in the Bantu language, to study the languages spoken by the African PoWs, as it could be advantageous for the «future colonial expansion» of Italy. Although Professor Ducati accepted the task, he was eventually forced to abandon it because of financial and logistical difficulties and the fall of Mussolini.
Even the PoWs who did the most demanding jobs were treated in line with the Geneva conventions, and their accommodation was considered adequate by the Red Cross delegates.
After the Armistice, the PoWs were captured by the Germans and transferred to another camp in Rome at first, and then to Passo Corese (Rimini), another work camp. Finally, they were deported to the German lager of Moosburg in Bavaria.

Archival sources

• Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero dell’Interno, Direzione Generale Pubblica Sicurezza, A5G, II GM, bb. 116, 117, Verbali e Notiziari della Commissione Interministeriale per i Prigionieri di Guerra
• Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero dell’Aeronautica, Gabinetto, b. 70, Verbali e Notiziari della Commissione Interministeriale per i Prigionieri di Guerra
• Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Onorcaduti b. 1
• Archivio Storico Ministero Affari Esteri, MAI, Vol. II, posizione 180-44, fascicolo 152
• Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, Diari storici, b. 667, 840, 1130, 1243
• Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, H8, b. 79
• Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, L10, b. 32
• The National Archives, WO 224/144
• The National Archives, WO 310/21
• The National Archives, WO 224/140

Bibliography

• Bertozzi M. (regia), Profughi a Cinecittà, Vivo film , 2012 (film)
• Crwys-Williams J., A country at war 1939-1945: The mood of a nation, Rivonia, Ashanti Publishing, 1992
• Horn K., In enemy hands. South Africa’s POWs in World War II, Johannesburg & Cape Town, Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2015
• Horn K., Changing Attitudes among South African Prisoners of War towards their Italian Captors during World War II, 1942–1943, in «Scientia Militaria», vol. 40, no 3, 2012 pp. 200-221
• Insolvibile I., I prigionieri alleati in Italia 1940-1943, tesi di dottorato, Dottorato in "Innovazione e Gestione delle Risorse Pubbliche", curriculum “Scienze Umane, Storiche e della Formazione”, Storia Contemporanea, Università degli Studi del Molise, anno accademico 2019-2020,
• Martera L., Harlem. Il film più censurato di sempre, Milano, CSC-Centro sperimentale di cinematografia, La nave di Teseo, 2021
• Steimaski N., The Cinecittà refugee camp. 1944-50, in J. D. Rhodes, E. Gorfinkel, (eds.), "Taking Place: Location and the Moving Image", Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2011 pp. 101-131
• Ugolotti C., Pg122: una storia di cinema e prigionieri, in M. Minardi (a cura di), "POW e campi in Italia", Parma, Mattioli 1885-Istituto Storico di Parma, 2021 pp. 153-178

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