Today marks the 76th anniversary from the day Auschwitz, one of the Nazi’s most terrifying concentration camps, was liberated with 7,000 frail prisoners freed. Despite the World War II being close to a century old, new horror stories keep emerging and the world remains shocked and repelled by the atrocities that took place during one of modern Europe’s darkest hours.
Malta also suffered greatly during this time through the Axis’s incessant bombing, but what many might not know is that a large number of Maltese citizens found themselves imprisoned in Italian concentration camps.
At the time an Italian colony, Libya was home to many Maltese, who were rounded up and made to renounce their British passports (Malta was a British colony). Their unwavering loyalty saw them refuse, an act which raised suspicions among the Italians. Branded British spies, a total of 2,000 Maltese were consequently sent to Italy in three separate shipments shortly before Benito Mussolini’s infamous declaration of war on France and Britain.
Children and pregnant women were among those sent to Italian concentration camps, where prisoners suffered through starvation, beatings and even rape by German troops.
This revelation was unearthed through Mario Xuereb’s three-part 2018 documentary Maltin Internati fl-Italja – Storja Vera (Maltese Internees in Italy – A True Story), where he explored the fates of various Maltese families through first-hand narrations about their experiences. The historian and TVM journalist collaborated with Italian researchers, who were looking into the history of two major Italian concentration camps.
After the War, most survivors returned to Tripoli only to find that they had lost everything, while others opted to rebuild their lives in Australia or Canada, with the former being the more popular choice.
RIP to all victims of the Holocaust.