Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1024340
NEWS 10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 9 SEPTEMBER 2018 MATTHEW VELLA A new Television Malta documentary will reveal in stunning detail the extent of the forced internment of the Mal- tese migrants of Tripoli during World War II, when they were transported en masse to Italian concentration camps under fascist command, and later under Nazi German soldiers. Mario Xuereb, the journalist who has unearthed the documentation with the names of the internees, travelled to Canada and Australia to meet survivors of the camps, to discover stories of ex- ploitation, death, and the hopelessness of the migrants when they were finally freed by the Allies. "It is a forgotten story, because the migrants in this saga never returned to Malta: they found nothing waiting for them in Tripoli when they returned, they lost everything, and they had noth- ing to go back to in Malta. They re- mained in 'exile'," Xuereb says of his re- search and encounters with survivors of the Fraschette camp, in Alatri, province of Frosinone in the region of Lazio. Perhaps one of the most disconcerting parts of the saga of Maltese migrants from Tripoli, is the role played by Car- lo Mallia, the former Unione Politica Maltese minister who left Malta to lead the Irredentist Maltese Group during World War II. By 1911, Tripolitania and the Cyrenai- ca had been taken under Italian control. Maltese migrants in Tripoli had been long established since the 1800s. "A thriving business community coexisted peacefully with Libyans and Italians at the time," Xuereb says. The Maltese were a community of merchants, shop- keepers, builders, bakers, fishermen, and other business trades. They jeal- ously preserved spoken Maltese. And during the 1911 Italian invasion, the Maltese remained neutral, maintaining good relations with both the Arabs and with the Italians. But this peaceful coexistence started being undermined as fascist influence in Libya started engaging in a campaign of obstruction, to encourage Maltese subjects to renounced their British citi- zenship. The Maltese migrants would be monitored by Italian police, occa- sionally jailed, and even excluded from social functions. When on 10 June, 1940, Italy entered the war, already several Maltese mi- grants had been placed under arrest and jailed by the Italian secret police. These were the first security measures undertaken to expel from Tripoli some 60 Maltese, who were arrested and tak- en to the prisons in Tripoli. Amongst the first were people like Carmelo Cini, whose son Romeo would later recount in sheer detail the ordeal of the Maltese in the Italian concentration camp of Fraschette. But it was in January 1942 that the re- location of over 2,000 migrants – prac- tically the entire Maltese community – began. "The Maltese by then were being sus- pected of not collaborating with the Italians. The Italians were themselves usurping business contracts away from the Maltese, while the Maltese were be- ing accused of spying on the Italians for the British crown. Slowly, slowly groups of migrants were being held under ar- rest outside Tripoli in concentration camps, until finally they were all sent to Italy," Mario Xuereb told MaltaToday. On 15th January 1942, the entire community was placed under arrest and within two days, women, old peo- ple and children were taken to a school building with their suitcases. On the 18th January, the migrants were placed on three merchant ships – the Gino Allegri, the Nino Bixio and the Lerice – and left in very rough seas, passing through a Mediterranean sea that was littered with mines. The migrants were reunited in Fiuggi, a tourist locality at the top of a moun- tain range, where they were placed in- side the hotel Grande Albergo: the ho- tel had been closed for years, but taken under the control of the fascist bureau- cracy to organise political internees. For days, the migrants were kept under quarantine, before being granted leave to stroll around the village. Some other migrants had been placed in boarding houses at Montecatini Terme and other localities in Tuscany. According to the account of one sur- vivor, Romeo Cini, the migrants were enjoying a comfortable life in Monte- catini and Fiuggi in the days following their arrival in Italy. What they were unaware of, is that "a big concentration camp was being constructed in a val- ley surrounded by the mountains of the Ciocaria. The locality was in the neigh- bourhood of the small city of Altari, at the foot of Fumone, a small village perched at the top of the mountain. The concentration camp was named Le Fra- schette. At that time, who of us could have imagined that soon we would all end up in that camp?" Mallia demands fascist loyalty In August 1942, the migrants were vis- ited unexpectedly by a Maltese delega- tion of fascists who were leading Fas- cio di Combattimenti di Malta. Xuereb mentions both Prof. Carlo Mallia, a for- mer ally of PN leader Enrico Mizzi, and Umberto Biscontini. Mallia was a Gozitan who in 1919 was a member of the National Assembly for the UPM, the precursors of the Nation- alist Party. He was minister from 1924 to 1926, but in 1937 he was dismissed from his professorship by the secretary of state for the colonies because of his fascist Italian sympathies. Shortly af- terwards he left Malta for Rome, where he became the leader of the Irredentist Maltese group. In June 1940 he broad- cast a strong pro-Italian speech to com- memorate the Sette Giugno. "Mallia was sent to speak to the Mal- tese migrants, because they were active- ly promoting a 'policy of discrimination' – he went to the Maltese to tell them to renounce their British citizenship and become 'sympathisers of fascism' to evade a fate in the concentration camps, and be able to live in Italy and be paid a stipend. Maybe some 20 of the migrants accepted, the rest refused," Xuereb says. In Romeo Cini's account, he men- tions a "Rev. Fr Chetcuti and Mr Mizzi" during that meeting. "Carlo Mallia in- troduced himself as 'the representative of the Maltese Fascist Party'… the visit went for several days... They informed us that we would be transferred to Fra- schette unless we made a declaration that we were, at the least, sympathizers of the Fascist Party. "However, the majority of the com- munity mistrusted their interest in us… our clear refusal left the representatives of the Maltese fascist party perplexed. So much so that Carlo Mallia in his last address in the great hall of the Grand Hotel at Fiuggi said these exact words: 'I leave you with my best wishes but be- fore bidding you goodbye, permit me to tell you that you do not know the Brit- ish and when you come to know them, I ask you to remember me'. With those words he bid us goodbye and from then Documentary sources: Mario Xuereb will be revealing detailed documentation kept by Fascist Italy on the Maltese migrants Carlo Mallia, the UPM minister, went to Italy where he led the Maltese fascist group there, and died in Rome in 1960 Last of the Tripolitanians