In 1943, on the streets of the town of Anversa, in Italy's southern region of Abruzzo, the Germans posted a chilling notice: "The German Military Tribunal has sentenced to death Michele [Del] Greco, a shepherd aged 57, for sheltering 56 English, French, Russian and American prisoners who had escaped from the concentration camps."

Below: Signora Raffaella del Greco, left, daughter of Michele del Greco, pictured with Letitia Blake, secretary of the Monte San Martino Trust, at the British embassy in Rome

The sentence, carried out 30 days later, was among the most tragic of the many cases in which reprisals were taken against Italians for helping Allied servicemen on the run after the Armistice on 8 September 1943.

It is history - but not only history. As the event at the British embassy in Rome, on 17 October 2008, showed, memories of such episodes are very much alive - and there are enduring echoes.

The occasion was the presentation at Villa Wolkonsky, the residence of Edward Chaplin, the British ambassador to Italy, of two books that recount the experiences of PoWs in camps in the Marche region, in north-east Italy. And among the guests was Raffaella del Greco, the daughter of Michele, who was just 17 when her father was shot dead. Raffaella has published an account, Those Long Thirty Days, of the family's experiences and is planning the publication of another memoir, Letter to My Father.

There were other ways, too, in which the event in Rome both recalled the past and referred to the present.

One of the books launched on this occasion was the Memoirs of Captain Derek Millar, who was medical officer at the Servigliano PoW camp in the Marche and who, upon his own responsibility and against Allied orders, ensured that the camp's 2,000 inmates escaped into the surrounding countryside on 14 September 1943 after the Armistice. Later, for his actions, Dr Millar was at first tried for disobeying orders and then decorated for having done so.

Dr Millar's daughter, Lois Sproat, and her two children, Lucy Danes and Charlie Sproat, attended the presentation of the Memoirs.

Also present were staff and pupils of the Montegiorgio High School, which is near Servigliano, and it is their participation that drives home the extent to which those wartime events still have resonance. The school used the memoirs as the vehicle for a multi-disciplinary project called "Documenting the 20^th Century" and, as part of this process, the school's fifth-year pupils translated the Memoirs.

The pupils' English teacher, Vermiglia Concetti, told the Villa Wolkonsky audience: "The existence of such a precious document from a historical and human point of view opened our eyes to the importance of local events and we came round to the idea of making those pages accessible to everybody, even to those who have no understanding of the English language. We thought the dissemination of these memoirs could contribute to keeping the events of the Second World War alive and to further repudiate the idea of violence in favour of peace, democracy and freedom."

The second book presented was Prigonieri Alleati: cattura, detenzione e fuga nelle Marche 1941-1944 (Allied Prisoners: capture, imprisonment and escape in the Marches) by Giuseppe Millozzi, published in Italian by the Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello Foundation.

The author is the son of Antonio Millozzi, the representative in Italy of the Monte San Martino Trust. The book studies the three main camps for Allied PoWs in the Marche, looking at conditions in which prisoners lived, at their maltreatment at Fascist hands and at their survival after the Armistice.

Those present at the Villa Wolkonsky occasion also included trustees of the Monte San Martino Trust and the Mayor of Monte San Martino, Valeriano Ghezzi. The following speeches, given at the presentation, were by:

1. Edward Chaplin, British Ambassador to Italy.

2. Anita Krol, Embassy Defence Relations Officer

3. Letitia Blake, Secretary of the Monte San Martino Trust

4. Antonio Millozzi, Trust representative in Italy

5. Antonio Iandiorio, Headmaster Montegiorgio High School

6. Vermiglia Concetti, English teacher, Montegiorgio

7. Filippo Ierano`, Director of the Casa della Memoria Association, Servigliano

8. Ruggero Ranieri, President of the Uuccione Ranieri di Sorbello Foundation

9. Giuseppe Millozzi, author

10. Letizia Mariani (speaking in English), a winner of a Monte San Martino bursary and pupil at Montegiorgio

•1.      HM Ambassador to Italy, Mr Edward Chaplin

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to extend a very warm welcome to you all here today to Villa Wolkonsky for this presentation of two books which recount, in their different ways, the experiences of British and Allied prisoners or war in camps in the Marches Region in the 2^nd World War, and to honour the memory of Dr Millar, a British Army medical officer detained in the Servigliano camp, whose action 65 years ago saved some 2,000 young men in the dark times of post-armistice Italy, in September 1943.

I am delighted to see here the daughter and grandchildren of Dr Millar from the UK, so many distinguished dignitaries from the Marches and the Trustees, Supporters and Representatives of the Monte San Martino Trust, of which I am pleased to be a Patron. The Trust has played, and continues to play, an important role in fostering the friendship between Britain and Italy and in making the younger generations aware of their history and of the enormous courage and sacrifices of their parents and grandparents during the last war for the freedom and democracy we enjoy today. It gives me great pleasure to see so many students and their teachers here and I applaud their efforts to keep alive the memory of our past and draw the lessons to be learnt from it for the present and the future.

Again, welcome to you all, and I will now pass you over to Anita Krol.

•2.      Ms Anita Krol, Embassy Defence Relations Officer

It is my pleasure to present all our guests, thanking them for coming here today: Dr Millar's daughter, Dr Lois Sproat, and her two children, Mrs Lucy Danes and Mr Charlie Sproat, who have travelled from Britain for this occasion, the Trustees of the Monte San Martino Fund, Dr Letitia Blake, our former Ambassador Sir Thomas and Lady Richardson, Mr and Mrs Sims, Mr Edward Gretton e Mrs Susan Wilson, the Representative of the Trust in Italy, a war orphan, Signor Antonio Millozzi and Mrs Andreina Millozzi, the supporters of the Trust in Italy, Signor Benito Barchetta and Signor e Signora Buratti. I would add here that the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napoletano sent an augural message to the Trust in 2006 when it reached a total of 300 study bursaries awarded to Italian students aged between 18 and 25 and congratulated the Trust on its cultural contribution to Anglo-Italian relations. Currently the Trust has awarded 345 bursaries for the study of the English language.

I would like to present Prof. Filippo Ieranò, President of the "Casa della Memoria" Association at Servigliano (in the Marches Region), who is a historian and arranged for the publication of Dr. Millar's Memoirs; the Montegiorgio High School Headmaster, Prof. Antonio Iandiorio, English teacher Prof. Vermiglia Concetti and her 5th form which last year translated Dr Millar's Memoirs, with a special mention for Letizia Mariani and Marika Pallotti who won Trust study bursaries this year for their contribution to the translation, and finally, this year's 5^th form of the same school. I would also present Gualtiero Ciabocco, who was also awarded a bursary this year on the occasion of the 4^th centenary of the death of the jurist Alberico Gentili.

It is my great pleasure to present Dr Giuseppe Millozzi, author of the book "Allied Prisoners: capture, detention and escape in the Marches Region 1941-44" and Prof. Ranieri, history lecturer at Manchester University until a few years ago and President of the Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello Foundation di Perugia, publisher of Giuseppe Millozzi's book; and Signora Raffaella Del Greco, whose father saved the lives of 56 Allied POWs in the Abruzzo before he was shot by the Germans for doing so. Unfortunately, Dr Nicola Papiri whose family sheltered Capt Millar and his assistant for a long time, at Cese di Montefalcone Appennino near Ascoli Piceno, not far from the Servigliano camp, is not able to be with us. 

I would also like to present the Mayor of Monte San Martino, Signor Valeriano Ghezzi, and Dr Paolo Spinucci, historian and President of the Pio Sodalizio dei Piceni Institute here in Rome.

Finally, I would like to pass on our greetings to Cavaliere Keith James Killby OBE, founder of the Monte San Martino Trust, who is unable to be with us today but is certainly with us in spirit.

•3.      Letitia Blake, Secretary of the Monte San Martino Trust

I am very honoured to be speaking to you today as the representative of the Monte San Martino Trust and to say a few words about the Trust, its history, its purpose and its activities.

The Trust was founded in 1989 as a permanent tribute to the Italian people who helped thousands of escaping Allied prisoners of war after the Armistice in 1943. Despite their own poverty and suffering thousands of ordinary Italians gave shelter, food, lodging and protection to the many young Allied soldiers who swarmed out of the camps and fled into the surrounding countryside. And of course this generosity was extended at great personal risk - many Italians were punished and even shot for providing refuge to young men who they didn't know and couldn't even understand. One such person is Michele del Greco, a shepherd who was shot for helping 56 POWs in the Abruzzi.   

Keith Killby, the founder of the Trust, was one of those young men who fled from Servigliano camp in the Marche and was helped on numerous occasions by Italians before being captured and sent to Germany. He returned to Italy in 1961 and almost every year thereafter and met several of those people who had helped him, and in 1989, a year after being made an honorary citizen of Monte San Martino, he decided to set up the Trust to raise funds to give bursaries to young Italians to come to England for one month to study English. This initiative generated great interest and generosity among former POWs who were delighted to be able to do something practical in recognition of the great debt of gratitude they owed to Italians from their wartime experience. 18 - 20 Italian students, aged between 18 and 24, come to London or Oxford for a month every summer and a single three month bursary was offered last year to mark the awarding of 300 bursaries given since the Trust began. About a third of the students who come have relatives who helped escaping POWs and every year we hear more fascinating stories of the personal connections made during that tumultuous time, connections that have in many cases become unbreakable bonds lasting to this day and passing down through generations and across nations.

We would like to express our profound gratitude to Antonio Millozzi, our representative in Italy who helped Keith Killby set up the Trust in 1989 and who continues to liaise with schools and students in Italy to ensure the smooth working of the Trust's activities. He and his son Giuseppe, have also helped many former Allied POWs to get in contact with the families of those who helped them or their relatives. Earlier this year they welcomed Dr Millar's son Lenox and grandson James to the Marche and helped them piece together various aspects of Dr Millar's experiences during and after the Armistice. Indeed, Giuseppe was fortunate, during the course of his own research, to be able to interview Dr Millar himself in England, shortly before his death.

The Trust has built up an archive of over 300 books and manuscripts by those who were "on the run" and we are very proud to have this beautifully produced and fascinating bi-lingual account of Dr Millar's  as our latest addition.

The Trust has been involved in organising many "freedom trails" commemorating the dangerous adventures of escaping POWs as they tried to reach the Allied Lines. The first Trail in May 2001 was a four-day event over the hills and valleys between Sulmona in the Abruzzi and Castel di Sangro. It was inaugurated by the then president of Italy, Carlo Ciampi, himself an escapee in the area.

I believe I can speak on behalf of my fellow-trustees Sir Tom Richardson, Stephen Sims and the Trust's student co-ordinator Susan Wilson when I say that we are all proud and delighted to be part of this moving occasion today and to extend our heartfelt thanks to you, Your Excellency, and to Mrs Chaplin, for your generous welcome. Keith Killby, our founder, extends warm wishes to all and regrets greatly that he cannot be with us but at 92 he is no longer able to travel abroad, even to his beloved Italy. He still remains however a very active force in the Trust and keeps us all in order in his inimitable way.

I would like to end by quoting Sir Tom Richardson who once wrote that "Diplomacy isn't just about relations between governments. It's about bringing people together, being grateful for the past and trying to make the past relevant to the present". I am indeed very grateful to a certain Signora di Cesare who hid my father for 9 weeks in her flat in occupied Sulmona in the autumn of 1943 and I am acutely aware that were it not for her courageous decision and action in the past I would not be standing here before you today. That is why so many of us believe passionately in the work of the Trust and hope that many of the connections made by young Italians visiting our country will extend into the future for many years to come, strengthening even further the bond that exists between our two nations.  

•4.      Signor Antonio Millozzi, Monte San Martino Trust Representative in Italy

My thanks to the Ambassador for welcoming us to his residence and for granting us the opportunity to present two books of significance for the history of our countries, and my greetings to all present here today.

Thank you to Dr Millar's family for being with us. Today we are celebrating Dr Millar, and the heroic decision he made against Allied orders, which allowed about 2,000 Allied prisoners of war to escape from the concentration camp at Servigliano on 14 September 1943 and flee to safety. This did not happen in the nearby camps at Monte Urano and Sforzacosta, where the 7,000 prisoners detained in each camp were picked up by the Germans and deported to Germany.

Men like Captain Millar do not like to see themselves as heroes but they have the presence of mind to make the right decision and take enormous responsibility on their shoulders when necessary.

The British Government decorated Capt Millar for creating the possibility for 2,000 prisoners to escape.

The Italian people took these prisoners in, even though they had been the enemy only days before. They did not understand them because of the language barrier but they hid and protected them and shared the bread they didn't have with them. They risked being shot by the Germans being or having their house burned down. The text of the notice which the German Command put up in Servigliano and which the pupils of the school asked to be included in the book of Dr Millar's memoirs is emblematic:

"Citizens,

Anyone who hides, assists or in any way helps enemy prisoners of war (British, American, Cypriot, Canadian etc) and does not report them immediately to the German Command at Servigliano or to the local Police will be arrested and punished according to the martial law of the German army, namely with the death penalty. Anyone who facilitates or in any way stops, arrests or hands over prisoners of war, or anyone who provides useful information leading to their immediate capture will be rewarded with a sum of money between L. 1,000 and L. 10,000 depending on the importance of the information provided."

HRH Prince Charles said in a message to the Trust that in the total chaos of war many friendships were formed in World War 2 as a result of the Italian people helping Allied soldiers reach freedom; these were remarkable acts which fill us with pride and are an example of what is best in the human spirit. A spirit shared equally with those who managed to escape. That all this resulted in such lasting bonds is a cause for great joy and celebration.

As the Representative of the Trust in Italy, I remember with pleasure the reception offered by HE Sir Thomas and Lady Richardson for the friends of the Trust in 1999 (with over 100 students who studied in England on Trust scholarships). Now the Monte San Martino Trust wishes to thank you for your contribution to the running of the Trust in London, together with the other Trustees, Mr Sims, Mrs Wilson and Mr Gretton who are present here today.

Our celebration today would not be complete without Signora Raffaela Del Greco, to whom former POWs are particularly grateful for the extreme sacrifice of her father Michele Greco, a martyr of the resistance. A shepherd in the Anversa degli Abruzzi Mountains, he showed 56 Allied prisoners the way to freedom before he was discovered by the Germans, tried and shot. The former POWs still remember with horror the notice put up on the streets of the town of Anversa in 1943 saying: "The German Military Tribunal has sentenced to death Michele Greco, a shepherd aged 57, for sheltering 56 English, French, Russian and American prisoners who had escaped from the concentration camps". Thank you Signora Raffaela for publishing your book "Those long thirty days" (the days waiting for the sentence to be carried out), so that time will not cancel the memory of what your father did.

I would also like to thank the Ambassador for inviting Dr Ragone, the President of the International Gentili Study Centre in San Ginesio, the birthplace of the jurist Alberico Gentili (San Ginesio 1552 - London 1608). Dr Ragone unfortunately could not be with us today. This year marks the 4^th centenary of Gentili's death and to mark the event our Trust awarded a 2008 bursary to the student Gualtiero Ciabocco, who comes from the town of San Ginesio. Gualtiero has just returned from his stay in London and is here with us today. In his most important work, "De Jure Belli", Gentili traced the way of how to avoid war and lay the foundations for the humane treatment of prisoners. The Trust, supported and funded by former prisoners of war, feels close to Gentili's ideas, and were pleased to offer one of its scholarships this year to the Centre for Gentili Studies at San Ginesio.

Finally, my warm thanks to the Ambassador for his kind hospitality, to the impeccable Anita Krol, Embassy Defence Relations Officer, who made all the arrangements for this event, and to all here present. My heartfelt thanks!

•5.      Prof. Antonio Iandiorio, Headmaster of the Montegiorgio High School

My school is situated in the town of Montegiorgio, which lies on a pretty hill typical of the Marches Region, about 4 km from Servigliano, in the province of Fermo. The pupils in my school learned about the experiences of Dr J. H. Derek Millar, Medical Officer in the British Army, when we undertook the translation of his memoirs. The pupils were greatly moved by the courage he showed in bringing about the liberation of 2,000 prisoners from the prison camp in Servigliano, risking his own life, at a time of great confusion caused by the evolution of the war.

In his act of great humanity, Dr Millar was helped by the resilient and generous people of the area around Fermo. It is probable that some of the grandparents of the pupils of my school knew Dr Millar and contributed to the success of his plan, and this has created a continuum between past and present generations united by sentiments of mutual respect and repudiation of war as a means to solve disputes.

Dr Millar will always be remembered for being a just, courageous and generous man.

•6.      Prof. Vermiglia Concetti, English teacher, Montegiorgio High School

We are used to thinking that school projects, however innovative, unusually end up sitting in the school's archives, or at best, receiving a mention in some local newspaper. This time things have taken a different turn: our multidisciplinary project called "Documenting the 20^th Century" received support and acclaim both inside and outside our school, it literally went beyond our national borders, as this morning's event and HE the British Ambassador's hospitality have proved.

From an educational point of view the project was geared towards historical and literary research covering the 20^th century. The students were encouraged to research documents and significant evidence and to dwell on events which occurred in the last century. Through our contacts at the Cultural Association "La Casa della Memoria" (The House of Memory) and the Monte San Martino Trust, we came across a handwritten document by a British medical officer who was at the time a prisoner of war in the Servigliano Camp: Captain Derek Millar's Memoirs. The existence of such a precious document from a historical and human point of view opened our eyes to the importance of local events and we came round to the idea of making those pages accessible to everybody, even to those who have no understanding of the English language. We thought the dissemination of these memoirs could contribute to keeping the events of the Second World War alive and to further repudiate the idea of violence in favour of peace, democracy and freedom.

With the support of the Monte San Martino Trust and the "Casa della Memoria" Association we nurtured the idea of a translating the document with the help of the students of the Montegiorgio High School. The translation kept the students busy for a long time. As their English teacher I tried to make them understand that what they were working on was not simply a newspaper article or a text book piece to translate mechanically to get the general meaning across. This was something entirely different, which required an emotional involvement to understand what was going on in the author's mind and to interpret his emotions and the reality of the situation before attempting any translation.

The students were also supported by their history teacher who helped them link what was happening locally to the general picture of the dark years of the war and the nazi-fascist occupation. Guided tours were organised to get a feel of the historical and geographical context. The visit to the Servigliano prison camp was particularly poignant as they were able to place the event they were working on and which Captain Miller wrote about in his memoirs.

It was a complicated translation to work on, especially in certain chapters where not many words were used to describe events that were barely mentioned or that overlapped with the author's at times hazy recollections. We were particularly struck by how the author dealt with such dramatic events using scant and passionless language. The unique and horrendous experience is represented in an almost remote fashion, as if he were distancing himself from the horrors committed by mankind, but he also gives vent to strong emotions and bewilderment, especially when faced with the brutality of the nazi-fascist ideology. The memoirs were for his family, as the subtitle says, so we must not forget the private nature of the account, which has no historical or pedagogic agenda, but  that of passing on a painful personal experience to his close relatives.

My thanks go to the Millar family for allowing us to work on these Memoirs, and in particular to Captain Millar's son Lenox and his grandson James Millar. We have been given the honour of reading a very personal piece of writing which has enriched us in cultural and human terms in addition to giving us the possibility of seeing our work appreciated and disseminated in the UK too.

Last but not least, a special thank you to HM Ambassador, Edward Chaplin, who has given us the opportunity of experiencing this unforgettable meeting in his Roman residence. 

•7.      Prof. Filippo Ieranò, Director of the Casa della Memoria ("House of Memory")

Association in Servigliano

Of all the information contained in Dr Millar's memoirs, I would like to dwell on certain parts of his story that I believe to be pertinent to the dispute we still have today over the historical analysis of the period of nazi-fascist occupation of Italy after 8 September 1943. I use the term "nazi-fascism" because it renders the sense of the new alliance that sprang up after the armistice between nazism and fascism. After the armistice signed by the Italian and Allied authorities at Cassibile, the political and institutional scene in Italy changed so quickly and so profoundly that a new phase of fascism was brought into being. The armistice had been preceded by the events of 25 July 1943, when, in a dramatic meeting, the Grand Fascist Council, acknowledging the enormous gap between the regime and popular feeling, passed a vote of no confidence on Mussolini and in doing so decreed the end of fascism. Mussolini was arrested by the king and the whole of Italy celebrated its first liberation, brought about by its institutions. It was, however, an ephemeral change and did not respond to the population's demands to put an end to the war, the same demands from a country which back in 1939 had already been opposed to the war which Germany had started, setting fire to the whole of Europe.

The armistice of 8 September 1943 triggered off, however, another cause of confusion in the inadequacy of the ruling classes who had openly supported fascism until a few months before. In those days of September, the Italian king and government made what in the eyes of the country was a cowardly choice of fleeing to safety in Brindisi, under the protection of the Allied army, while German divisions were occupying all the Centre-North of the peninsula. The political and military scene appeared to be determined by the presence of the German army in the Centre-North and the Allied army in the South.  But this was not the case. In the Centre-North, fascism, which had been buried by recent events, was revived by Mussolini, who gave it a new ideological connotation: the republican fascism of the RSI (the Italian Social Republic) which rallied all fascists to continue the war on the side of Germany. At Brindisi, on the other hand, while officially the Kingdom of the South was being formed under the Savoy monarchy and the old ruling cadres, the National Liberation Committee (CLN) was being founded and became the vehicle for the voice and action of antifascist political forces.

In the months following September 1943 Italians still took an active part in the war but on two different sides, divided between the units of the Italian Corps of Liberation (CIL) on the side of the Allied troops and the army of the RSI, which sided with Nazi Germany. This phase of the war was for Italy, as the historian Claudio Pavone put it, a "civil war", especially in the Centre-North occupied by the nazi-fascists, where the fight for freedom was being organized, involving partisans and ordinary citizens.

A number of interesting sequences from Dr Millar's memoirs are set against this politico-military background, in particular the Allied soldiers' escape from the camp at Servigliano. Camp CP 59 contained approximately 2,000 Allied prisoners in autumn 1943. Life inside the camp was hard but despite very poor conditions and inadequate food, in the testimonies given by former prisoners there was no report of brutal treatment from the guards.

Before Dr Millar's book we already had other versions of the escape from the camp as seen through the eyes of the troops, through the memoirs of the US soldier Manuel Serrano and the British soldier Keith Killby, who described it as a chaotic event, a kind of shambolic scramble in a moment of total anarchy and confusion. This was obviously the impression of the escape that had stayed in their minds. Dr Millar, who was Capt Millar at the time, gives us a different narrative version of the same event. He tells us of the contacts with Col Bacci, the camp commandant, and of the consultations between officers who represented the different nationalities in the camp (British, American, Canadian, New Zealander, Australian .... ). Everyone knew the Germans were on their way but the orders of the allied command to stay in the camps was categorical. It was at that moment that Capt Millar decided to take all the responsibility onto himself, signed a statement and ordered everyone to flee. It was 14 September, and two days later the Germans arrived. For his decision, at the end of the war, Capt. Millar was first tried for disobeying orders and then decorated for doing so.

Despite the fears of the fleeing prisoners, the local people, and in particular the families who lived off the land, were not only hospitable towards them but also spontaneously organised themselves in a kind of protection network for all escapees - ex prisoners, Jews, Italians avoiding military service and partisans. The extraordinary rallying round of ordinary people, despite the risk they ran, even surprised Capt Millar.

Article 1 of Mussolini's decree dated 9 October 1943 warned: "Anyone helping escaped prisoners of war in any way or giving shelter to members of enemy armed forces in order to help them escape or hide their presence will be punished with the death penalty." All those, therefore, who were generous to people on the run were taking an enormous risk, which, however, they ran willingly. The nazi-fascists promised a large reward of L.2,000 (the equivalent of 3 months pay for a worker) for every Allied soldier captured and up to L.5,000 for a Jew. They even promised human exchanges as a reward: anyone who reported an Allied prisoner would be entitled to have a relative interned in the German concentration camps repatriated. The threats and promises did not stop the spontaneous organization of forms of assistance for those on the run, but many paid for this generosity with their lives, as Capt Millar memoirs remind us.

So, in the Centre-North there were two forms of resistance against nazi-fascism: the armed resistance of the partisans and the unarmed resistance of ordinary people. The former had a political connotation - in fact the CLN was the expression of antifascist political parties - while the latter was carried out by simple people and is more difficult to understand because it was outside any party logic.

What were the reasons for this form of mass civil resistance? A number of different explanations have been given: Roger Absalom talks of a form of Christian solidarity while Anna Bravo suggest a psychological explanation, based on the idea of a kind of group "maternalism" towards those in need. They are interesting opinions but they do not clarify certain aspects of the phenomenon. Why did the religious impulse or the maternal instinct not manifest themselves before July or September 1943? Why did the escape attempt by a dozen Allied soldiers in the Servigliano camp in 1942 fail because local people reported them?

It is always difficult to interpret such complex events. I would like to point out, however, that after the armistice in September 1943, Italians felt the need to express a radically different choice from what had gone previously. On the one hand, a hard core of convinced fascists was re-formed who fully supported the logic of "absolute evil" and on the other, the large majority of the Italian population chose to act for freedom, a value they put into practice by recognizing the fundamental human rights of people they didn't know and showing solidarity towards those who were being persecuted. These universal values became articles of the Italian Constitution which entered into force in January 1948 and which we all have the duty to affirm.

My thanks again to the Ambassador, and to you all.

8.  Prof. Ruggero Ranieri, President of the Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello Foundation.

Ambassador, dear ladies and gentlemen,

The Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello Foundation is proud to have published the work by Giuseppe Millozzi, "Prigionieri Alleati: cattura, detenzione e fuga nelle Marche 1941-1944", we are presenting today.  The Foundation is a charitable trust founded in 1995 in the State of New York, in the US. Our day to day work, however, is carried out in Perugia, in Palazzo Sorbello, where we hold a library, with a collection of history books and private papers and a collection of art. The Library is open to scholars and parts of the art collection are displayed in a small house museum.

The Foundation is entitled after my father Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello, scholar, writer and international civil servant.  Uguccione took part in the fight against fascism and Nazism, particularly after the 8^th of September 1943. He fled from occupied Italy across the lines to join the Italian regular army and the Allied forces in the South, namely at Termoli, which at that time (October 1943) was very close to the war front.  There he was recruited by A-Force, a joint Allied intelligence service, whose task was to track down Allied POWs behind enemy-lines, and help them  re-join the Allied forces in the South, either by organizing rescue parties by boat, or by leading them in small groups down the so called "rat-line", which weaved its way southwards from safe house to safe house, ultimately crossing the front line into Allied controlled territory. During the months from November 1943 to June 1944, Uguccione Ranieri operated undercover in enemy occupied territory, mainly based in the Marche and on the mountains of the Abruzzi. Clearly this was a difficult and dangerous mission, and he was rewarded for it with both a silver and bronze medal from the Italian authorities.

The book by Millozzi provides a detailed and fascinating account of this little known chapter of World War 2, by studying the three main camps for Allied POWs in the Marche, looking at the conditions in which the prisoners lived, at the maltreatment they often suffered at the hands of their Fascist captures, at their attempts at escape and survival after the armistice of 8 September 1943, which, in effect, allowed the Germans to control a large part of Italy's territory. Millozzi underscores the strong help that the local "contadini" offered to the escaping prisoners, giving them shelter and support. This wartime network of what we might call civil resistance has left an enduring legacy of friendship between the British and the Italians of which the San Martino Trust based testimony.

Millozzi's book, which is scholarly and yet written in a simple and direct style, deserves to be widely read especially by the younger generations and adopted by school teachers.   It has the advantage of drawing on sources both in English and in Italian. I am sure it will stimulate further research on what remains a worthy and important page, written, among others, by our contadini, who, amidst the brutality of war, never lost track of fundamental values of humanity, friendship and resistance against evil.

9.  Dr Giuseppe Millozzi, author of "Allied Prisoners: Capture, Detention and Escape in

     the Marches 1941-44"

At the end of the second world war, as the Allied Screening Commission began its work, Sir Osborne Francis, British Ambassador in Italy, gave a speech which started like this: "On behalf of the governments of Great Britain and the United States of America and the people of these two nations, my sincere thanks go those Italians who helped our soldiers to flee from the hands of the enemy ....... We are aware that many of them were not in a position to afford to give food, lodging and clothes to our soldiers and that at times they suffered privations and serious damage to their property."

The Ambassador's thanks went mostly to people who lived in Italy's rural areas as it was the poorest peasants who helped the mass of Allied prisoners who fled from the camps after the armistice in September 1943.

The book I have written celebrates the friendship which sprang up between these peasants and the fleeing soldiers. In the years I lived in England I often asked myself why certain middle-aged Englishmen were fond of Italy. As I got to know them and became friends with them I discovered that in many cases they had been prisoners of war in Italy during the second world war. I also discovered, and this was even more difficult to understand, that they felt nostalgia for the months they had passed as fugitives in the Italian countryside and for the people they had met , whom they wished to see again. How strange the war is if it can forge such lasting friendships.

Towards the end of my university studies in Italy, when the time was ripe and my knowledge of the subject wide enough and thanks in particular to the moral support of Mr Killby, founder of the Monte San Martino Trust, I decided to write my degree thesis on this subject. I had to reconstruct the stories of the Allied prisoners from their capture in North Africa in 1942 and ‘43. As it was impossible for me to study the prison camps in the whole of Italy, I decided to focus on the camps in the Marches Region. As I studied the camp at Servigliano, I came across a decidedly special person: Dr J. H. Derek Millar. I had the fortune of being able to meet him in 2003 in his home near Scunthorpe, in England. I will leave it to the speaker who will present his Memoirs to describe Dr Millar's great humanity while I wish to use the time I have here today to tell you about the project which we are working on in Servigliano, in the Marches Region, to transform the site of prison camp PG 59 into a laboratory of contemporary history and a museum for schools.

At Servigliano, in order to save what remains of the concentration camp and its history, an association was set up in 2001 called the "Casa della Memoria" or "House of Memory". The Servigliano camp, together with the Fonte d'Amore camp at Sulmona, have the same history: they were both built in 1915 and were therefore used in both the first and second world wars. Servigliano was also transformed into a Refugee Centre in 1945 and therefore compared to the camp in Sulmona was also involved in the events of the Cold War. It is for this reason that the Association is busy creating a centre where documentation can be kept, contacts can be made and school parties can be received. Parties from a large number of schools from the Marches Region have visited the camp in the last three years.

Today not much left is of the original structure of the camp; in the 1970's the huts, which were in a state of neglect, were demolished and the town council created a park and a sports centre inside the camp walls.

Inside the camp there is still a dilapidated hut which was once a kitchen and the massive walls which surrounded the camp are still standing, on top of which sharp pieces of embedded glass and barbed wire, meant to discourage any attempts to escape or contacts with the outside world, can still be seen. The guards huts outside the camp are still standing; one of these, which is being restored, is today the Servigliano scout hut. The hut which served as an officers mess, the only hut built entirely in bricks, is falling to pieces after being used as a private residence for many years. The most significant building is definitely the old railway station near the camp. This is where the prisoners -no fewer than 10,000 in all - arrived as well as the Red Cross parcels in their thousands. If it were renovated, the station could become a first-class museum. We could, together with the council, design it for a dual use: to house permanent exhibitions on the Tenna Valley trains and of the objects which belonged to the POWs.

All these minor projects could be contained in a wider project put forward by the History Institute of Ascoli Piceno, whose Chairman Costantino di Sante would like to create a "permanent workshop" for studies of contemporary history in the Piceno area. His project is aimed at linking up the various associations which study the same subjects but which do not talk to each other. The principal actors of this project are of course the History Institutes of Fermo and Ascoli Piceno, with their respective provinces scattered with numerous historical sites and museums.

In this project the "Casa della Memoria" should become a focal point as far as the internment and deportation of POWs are concerned, with a centre of records for the history of fascism, of the resistance movement, of POWs, asylum seekers and refugees. Once the network is set up, it will be of use not only to schools but to local institutions wishing to organize events - exhibitions, conferences and study days - and will also be able to offer a consultancy service and support for official events on anniversaries of historical significance or "days to remember" such as 27 January, 11 February and 25 April. The "permanent workshop" will work not only with schools and town councils but also with museums, workshops and organizations in the area with an interest in the 20^th century.

In the first few years of its life, the "Casa della Memoria" Association focused on searching for documents which could help to reconstruct the history of the camp. Its second objective was to invite schools to visit the camp and to use it as an open-air history lab. It continues its research on events connected with the camp and to organize guided tours but now must achieve a third objective of equal importance to the others: restore the buildings which are still standing and make them into a "history lab" museum.

•10.   Letizia Mariani, one of the winners of the 2008 Monte San Martino study bursaries 

During our 5th year at the Institute of Business and Technical Studies of Montegiorgio we pupils were involved in a project aimed at discovering what happened in the concentration camp at Servigliano during the second world war. We watched videos, saw models of reconstructions of the camp, listened to testimonies of survivors, visited the site of the camp, which is today a park of peace, and above all we translated the memoirs which J.H. Derek Millar wrote for his family from English into Italian. In doing all this we discovered a piece of our local history which is not narrated in history books. 

Our commitment to the translation qualified us for a competition in which the winners would be awarded with study scholarships. The scholarships consisted in a one-month stay in a family in London and one month of lessons at the "Central School of English".

The winners were two girls: myself, Letizia Mariani, and my classmate Marika Pallotti. We went to London at the same time but we stayed with two different families in different areas of the city, both of which made us very welcome.

Our host families made us feel at home, gave us everything we needed and were most kind and helpful; we were also fortunate because we were not the only students in our families and we had the opportunity to practice our English with students from other countries.

The school was very well organized and on the first day we sat a written and oral English test so that we could be placed in a class with students of the same level as us.  Our days were organized with grammar lessons in the mornings and oral lessons in the afternoon. After the lessons we had some leisure time to visit the city and if we didn't know what to do there was a Social Program which always offered something interesting to do or to see.

During our month in London we visited every corner of the city, wandering about with our new Italian and foreign friends and we saw things that we had never seen in Italy, such as the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

We have stayed in touch with these friends, so that the friendships born in London can continue over national borders and who knows one day we might be able to meet up again, in Italy perhaps, or in a foreign country or once more in London.

We took lots and lots of photos to keep our memory alive of this magnificent experience which we hope to be able to repeat.