Behind the Battle Lines:Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs,Berbers,and Jews in North Africa during WW2

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CogCalgary
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Behind the Battle Lines:Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs,Berbers,and Jews in North Africa during WW2

Post by CogCalgary » 03 Mar 2023 15:05


CogCalgary
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Re: Behind the Battle Lines:Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs,Berbers,and Jews in North Africa during WW2

Post by CogCalgary » 04 Mar 2023 02:57

"For counterinsurgency The PAI even built up a secret service branch,the The Offizio speciale di instructions (instruziones) di Polizia,which relied heavily on informants and agents."
Obviously OVRA.
PAI is Polizia dell' Africa Italiane.
Evidence that Rommel was complicit in war crimes is discussed.

CogCalgary
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Re: Behind the Battle Lines:Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs,Berbers,and Jews in North Africa during WW2

Post by CogCalgary » 05 Mar 2023 22:17

Giado.
"The worst of these CAMPI di CONCENTRAMENTO was situated in Giado,a small town 147 miles south of Tripoli.Opened in 1942,the camp was inhabited by about 3000 prisoners,600 of whom died due to exposure,malnourished,or disease."

CogCalgary
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Re: Behind the Battle Lines:Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs,Berbers,and Jews in North Africa during WW2

Post by CogCalgary » 06 Mar 2023 04:03

"The high mortality rate was the consequence of extremely poor living conditions and forced labor:the prisoners received only 100 grams of bread a day and had to carry heavy stones from one end of the camp to the other and back again.Physically weakened,many prisoners succumbed to disease."
Typhus.

CogCalgary
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Re: Behind the Battle Lines:Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs,Berbers,and Jews in North Africa during WW2

Post by CogCalgary » 07 Mar 2023 02:25

"Eric Salerno suggests that Italian authorities used forced labor deliberately as a means to kill off internees."80.
"The camp commander told at least one prisoner that the Jews had been transported to Giado so that they could die there.Indeed,after the Axis defeat at El Alamein,the camp was to be disbanded and all the internees killed(though we do not know on whose orders).
Those prisoners who were still able to move were to be executed with machine guns;the sick were to be burned alive in the hospital.For hours the internees awaited what seemed like an inevitable death-it seems that they had to wait with the machine guns in view- as they waited for the order to kill them to be confirmed by the military command."
"The order was rescinded for reasons that remain unclear."

CogCalgary
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Re: Behind the Battle Lines:Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs,Berbers,and Jews in North Africa during WW2

Post by CogCalgary » 08 Mar 2023 04:22

Allied POWS were held in different camps for white and non white.The non white camps were apparently quite bad.

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Re: Behind the Battle Lines:Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs,Berbers,and Jews in North Africa during WW2

Post by David Thompson » 08 Mar 2023 05:23

CogcCalgaray -- You wrote:
Allied POWS were held in different camps for white and non white.The non white camps were apparently quite bad.

You didn't give a sources or sources for this generalization. What is it?

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Re: Behind the Battle Lines:Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs,Berbers,and Jews in North Africa during WW2

Post by CogCalgary » 08 Mar 2023 09:32

Page 435
"It is not surprising,therefore,that the Italian military administration set up a camp system for Allied POW's that reflected the "racial hierarchy"propagated by the Fascist regime.Soldiers of color were systematically discriminated against.The military interned non-whites in separate camps that lacked adequate facilities and provided them with lesser rations than it did others."(88)

"The latter was a clear violation of the Geneva Convention of 1929:Articles 11 to 13 state that the provisions for all prisoners must be of a quality and quantity similar to those of the belligerent's own soldiers."
"In Zilten,a camp run exclusively for native South Africans and Indians,Italian guards beat POW's,stabbed them with bayonets and even threatened to shoot them."(89)
Sounds like everybody broke the rules when it came to POWS.But not everywhere.

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