Italian prisoners of war in Australia were Italian soldiers captured by the British and Allied Forces in World War II and taken to Australia.
On 10 June 1940, Italy entered the Second World War on the side of Germany. During the course of the war, Great Britain and their allies captured in Ethiopia and North Africa approximately 400,000 Italian troops, who were sent to POW camps all over the world, including Australia.
Between 1941 and 1945, Australia received custody of 18,420 Italian POWs. The bulk came from British camps in India. During this time prisoners wore burgundy/maroon clothing. Then, after Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, the Australian authorities took between 13,000 and 15,000 Italian prisoners out of the POW camps and put them to work.
Over the period, several POWs escaped internment camps, at least one was shot for allegedly trying to escape from a camp, one committed suicide in a camp, fights between fascist versus anti-fascist supporting prisoners, and others was charged with criminal offences. At least one was named as a party to divorce proceedings.
Research undertaken of POWs in northern New South Wales indicated newspapers carried much anti-Italian sentiment: Unionists held concerns unpaid Italian POW labour would displace existing Australian labour; Inequality of Italian POWs had greater freedoms and better food than Australian POWs in overseas camps; and POWs should not be allowed to return to Australia post-war. On an individual level, rapport occurred between landowners and their POW labourers.
One brand of red wine currently produced in Australia is called "Rabbit & Spaghetti", this being the customary diet of Italian POWs in Australia.
The Italian National Ossario at Murchison, Victoria holds the remains of 130 Italian soldiers and civilians who died while interned in Australia.
The Australian Federal Government is still yet, to apologise for interning Australian citizens because of where they were born, like what was done overseas with apologies given in such countries as the United States and Canada. An apology was given by the Government of South Australia, but no attempts by either party and it seems unlikely from the coalition, whose recent deputy leader MP Michael McCormack said it was unnecessary to apologise to European nationals, interned by the Federal Government during the Second World War and "Look, it was considered the right policy at the time", along with "I think we sometimes need to just move on with these sorts of things".
Detainees during WWII in Australia
When Italy entered World War II aligning itself with Germany on 10 June 1940, the Australian government labeled citizens of Australia from Italian descent as a threat to the nation. Laws were enacted against these Italian descendants who were often seized and imprisoned by the Australian government. By the late 1940s, internment camps in Australia housed twenty percent of the Italian population in Australia along with other “enemy aliens” who were residents of Australia. The internment camps in Australia housed different types of groups consisting of “enemy aliens”, foreign internees, German and Italian prisoners of war, and politically affiliated foreign enemy nationals. There were also three hundred Aboriginal residents of the Cape York mission, a missionary community run by a German pastor, who were imprisoned. Thirty nationalities detained in the Australian internment camps during World War II, with the majority of prisoners being Italians, Germans, and Japanese. While some women and children held as prisoners, overall, the majority of detainees were men.
There were many internment camps built in every state which detained fifteen thousand internees and at least twenty-five thousand prisoners of war. The Australian government used eighteen larger internment camps as the main facility to detain majority of the “enemy aliens”, prisoners of war, and internees until the end of WWII. The numerous smaller internment camps which were built in each state were used as a temporary holding facilities. As many of the internment camps throughout Australia grew in size, a variety of communities within the camps were established by the ethnically and politically diverse detainees. The internment camps became the epicenter of diverse culture, ethnicity, and social status often leading to disputes breaking out between the communities, like fights between Italian Royalists and fascists. This pushed some Australian internment camps to adapt to the growing conflicts between the diverse communities by creating four separate compounds for the detainees within the camps.