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Italian POW camps in Russia

DrG

Active Member
On the Axis History Forum there has been a recent inquiry about photos of the Italian camp for Soviet POWs in Karjnskaya https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=260315 . The issue of 2017 of the "Bollettino d'Archivio dell'Ufficio Storico dell'Esercito" contains an excellent article (Emilio Tirone, "Le specificità del comportamento umanitario italiano durante le operazioni sul fronte russo (1941-1943)") about Italian POW camps in USSR and, in particular, page 133 provides a photo of an Italian chaplain in front of a row of POWs in the camp of Karins Kaja: https://issuu.com/rivista.militare1/docs/bollettino-2017-testo/133 . There are also other photos, but it's not clear where they have been shot.

On the same topic I suggest the following studies available online:
Filippo Cappellano, "Il comportamento delle truppe italiane sul fronte orientale (1941-1943)", I quaderni della Rivista Aeronautica, n. 1, 2006
http://bascogrigioverde.blogspot.com/2007/07/da-rivista-aeronautica-il-comportamento.html
https://www.unirr.it/media/kunena/a...ianesulFronteOrientale_ArticoloCappellano.pdf
Emilio Tirone, "La politica italiana verso la popolazione civile e i prigionieri di guerra sul fronte russo", in Battaglie in Russia. Il Don e Stalingrado 75 anni dopo edited by Olga Dubrovina, Unicopli, 2018
https://www.academia.edu/43076827/L...le_e_i_prigionieri_di_guerra_sul_fronte_russo
 

jwsleser

Administrator
Staff member
DrG

I saw that post on AHF. I looked at the I campi fascisti website but didn't find an entry for that camp. I didn't find any Campo di concentramento or Campo per prigionieri di guerra list in Russia. My understand is that the Italians didn't hold Russian prisoners but, per an agreement, turned them over to the Germans. I am wondering whether this 'camp' in Russia was actually POW collection points for transfer to the Germans.

Pista! Jeff
 

DrG

Active Member
POWs were kept by the Axis power having the command at army level. Therefore, Soviet POWs were taken into Italian camps in USSR after the creation of the ARMIR in the summer of 1942, but also before that date the CSIR had received some thousands of POWs in "lease" from the Germans for work in the rear of the front.
 

jwsleser

Administrator
Staff member
DrG

Do you have a cite for that? I will check my sources for the agreement to turn over all prisoners to the Germans.

v/r Jeff
 

DrG

Active Member
You can find these information about Soviet POWs in Italian camps in Cappellano's article which I have linked in my first post.

The same praxis (which, AFAIK, is a customary if not positive practice in war law) of giving the POWs to the Power in command at army level was followed also in North Africa, and in fact all the Allied POWs captured in that theater were kept in Italian camps.
 
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