PG 115 Morgnano, near Spoleto

Morgnano is a subdivision of the municipality of Spoleto, in the province of Perugia, Italian region of Umbria.

PM 3300

The camp was operational from May 1942. A list of men interred there, kindly provided by Janet Kinrade Dethick  from the UK National Archive WO 392/21 collection and various escape and liberation reports is here PG 115 Names Provided By Janet Kinrade Dethick

PG 115 was predominantly a work camp*.  Sources indicate that work was in the Cantiere Orlando Lignite mine.

More information on this camp can be discovered here:

https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=378

Translation for Campi Fascisti main page:

Morgnano – Camp for prisoners of war n. 115
Morgnano, fraction of Spoleto (Perugia) – Italy
Camp type: Prisoner of war camp from May 1942
Source: DPG27
History:
The work camp for prisoners of war of Morgnano (or Cantiere Orlando), which is assigned the conventional number PG No. 115, officially enters service in May 1942 (see DPG29). The opening of the camp follows a request by the Terni Anonymous Company to use prisoners of war in mining works (in Morgnano, a locality in the municipality of Spoleto, there are lignite mines exploited by the Terni steelworks).

Initially, 100 prisoners of war from the PG camp were assigned to the Morgnano camp. No. 62 of Grumello del Piano, originally intended for the Gavorrano mines (see PGGR02).

Given that prisoners of war are, at least in part, destined to work underground – a type of work prohibited by the Geneva Conventions on the treatment to be reserved for prisoners of war, rules also ratified by Italy in 1930 -, it is recommended that in group of internees destined for Morgnano a percentage of 25% of volunteers is also included (see also PGGR02).

On June 1, 1942 – from the initial 100 – the prisoners of war in the P.G. 115 become 297, all classified as former Yugoslavs, and divided as follows: 130 Serbs, 51 Montenegrins, 70 Italian or annexed Albanians (Slovenes from the province of Ljubljana), 42 Croats and 4 of other nationalities (Bulgarians or Hungarians or Slovenians) (see DPG10).

The schedule of November 30, 1942 relating to the P.G. No. 115 records the arrival of another 177 prisoners (all ex-Yugoslavs, except one classified as Middle Eastern) (see DPG25 and DPG26).
This further increase can almost certainly be explained by the opening of the Marsciano work detachment, dependent on the Morgano base camp. At the request of the Pio Briziarelli & Figli company, the Prisoners of War Office authorized the assignment of 200 internees to be used for the manufacture of bricks at the Marsciano factory, “subject to the establishment of a work camp in the locality deemed most suitable for purpose” (see PGMR01).

Unfortunately, the data on the number of prisoners of war that the General Staff of the Army disseminates every fortnight are not divided also by work detachments, i.e. the number of prisoners of war relates only to the base camp on which the detachments depend.

Therefore, what we can limit ourselves to doing at the moment is to provide the latest data available from our research, those relating to March 31, 1943. On that day, in the Morgnano camp there were present (therefore including the prisoners of war assigned to the Marsciano detachment) 499 P.G. divided as follows: 228 Serbs, 105 Albanians, 50 Croats, 50 white South Africans (arrived during the month of March 1943), 48 Montenegrins, 12 new Italians, 2 Middle Easterners, 1 Slovenian and 3 of other nationalities (see DPG35 and DPG36) .

We know almost nothing about the living and working conditions in the Morgnano camp. Very probably they must have been rather hard if, in February 1943, it was asked to transfer the prisoners “sick and invalid or in any case not able – due to their organic deterioration – to be employed in work” from the Morgnano and Ruscio camps to the P.G. prisoner of war camp No. 62 of Grumello del Piano (see DRU04).

On this occasion, the Prisoners of War Office of the General Staff of the Royal Army is carrying out a sort of “restructuring” of these two Umbrian work camps. It is arranged that the prisoners of war of camp N. 117 who are still able to work, are sent to camp N. 115. That camp 117 is assigned civilian internees of Montenegrin nationality taken from the camp for civilian internees of Colfiorito. And finally establishes that the camp No. 117 (at this point become a labor camp for civilian internees) is structured as a Detachment of the camp for prisoners of war PG. 115 (see DRU04).

In this way a labor camp for civilian internees (No. 117) is created which depends on a labor camp for prisoners of war (No. 115). In fact, a new type of concentration camp, at least from an administrative point of view.

At the moment we do not have any other information about the Morgnano prisoner of war labor camp.

Note: Research on Italian prisoner of war camps is still ongoing (November 2012). The information reported here is taken from some documents conserved in the Historical Office of the Army General Staff and concerns only the period from March 1942 to March 1943. The data on this sheet are therefore incomplete and still to be verified.

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*Italian work camps (also referred to as satellites, work detachments or labour camps) have two numbers. The first is that of the main camp, the second of the work camp, for example PG 115/III represents work camp III of PG 115. The administrative management of the work camps was entrusted to the main camp. In Italy, work detachments could be sent from different prisoner of war camps to a work camp and one camp in the area selected as the main camp.

Work camps were allocated Roman numerals, although Arabic numerals are often used by many sources. Some main camps were also work camps, but were assigned the conventional number as opposed to a work camp number.

PG abbreviation

The full title is ‘Campo Concentramento di Prigioniere di Guerra’ (prisoner of war concentration camp). They were not concentration camps in the normal sense of the word. Camps were normally prefixed PG, but could be referred to as CC, Campo or Campo PG. The exception was the 2 Dulags and 1 Stalag within Italy, which were German controlled transit centres for POWs being transferred to Germany. The camps were originally known by their place names, and numbers were not introduced until early 1942. There are some camps with no numbers, perhaps they closed before early 1942?

PM abbreviation

Camps in Italy were divided into postal areas, each area designated ‘PM [number]’. PM translates to ‘Posta Militare’, meaning ‘military mail’. The number indicated the central postal reception area for the camps’ mail.