Isle Of The Displaced: An Italian-Scot's Memoirs of Internment during the Second World War

Joe Pieri (1919-2012) was arrested in Glasgow, Scotland, in June 1940 because he was an Italian. He was neither a Fascist, a Nazi nor a dangerous war criminal, but because of a government error he was shipped to a POW camp on Montreal's St. Helen's Island (Île Sainte-Hélène) where he remained until the end of 1943. Born into a poor rural family in Tuscany in 1919, his family emigrated to Glasgow when he was two. In June 1940, just when the family had begun to attain a certain level of prosperity, Mussolini declared war on Britain. Winston Churchill nurtured fears of a 'Fifth Column' of enemy nationals living in the UK, and uttered his famous 'collar the lot' command. Most of the Italians arrested were sent to internment camps on the Isle of Man, some were torpedoed and killed on the ill-fated 'Arandora Star', and some were transported to Australia. But Joe's fate was different. Owing to a governmental blunder he was shipped 3000 miles and spent three years in a POW camp on St Helen's Island, in the shadow of the Jacques Cartier bridge spanning the St Lawrence river.

Glasgow, Scotland

Neil Wilson

1997

192p.

en

1-897784-57-0