Prisoners of war to partisans: Australian experiences in Italy during the second world war/

MONTEATH Peter

Prisoners of war to partisans: Australian experiences in Italy during the second world war/ Peter Monteath and Katrina Kittel - 2021

This article considers the relatively small number of those men who made their way into the Italian resistance as partisans, drawing in particular on examples of Australian POWs who were in work camps in Piedmont at the time of the Armistice. In doing so it considers not only the circumstances and motivations guiding the POWs to become partisans, but also the factors which persuaded Italian communities and partisan groups to accept Allied POWs among them. The argument draws on Eric Hobsbawm's notion of 'social banditry' to explain the conversion from POW to partisan, while also contending that the phenomenon was complex, dynamic, and best understood from Allied and Italian perspectives.


PRISONERS OF WAR--AUSTRALIANS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR--ITALY IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR--RESISTANCE--BANDITRY--ALLIED PRISONERS OF WAR--POWS