PG 146 Mortara

PG 146 was a labour camp*, situated in the town of Mortara, province of Pavia, Italian region of Lombardy.

PM 3100

It was operational from March 1943. Mostly prisoners from Australia and New Zealand.

Records suggest about 37 work camps.  All work involved agriculture.  Many prisoners worked in rice fields.

The Camp closed following a mass breakout of prisoners after the Armistice on 8th September 1943. Many escaped northwards into the Alps and into Switzerland, after which they later returned to UK. The following information was provided by Fablo Balguera which could be relevant to this breakout:

Posted on behalf of Fabio Baiguera :
 PG 146 Mortara
I finally came to your website by following different paths and researches, in an attempt to gather information for a historical investigation about a member of my family (brother of my great-grandfather).
According to the testimonies of family members, he was involved in a noble action (so far ignored and there is a risk of being totally lost in time and memory): After the armistice, because of the approach of German troops, this member of my family (it is actually unclear whether he was alone or with the help of anybody else) opened the gates of the forced work camp for prisoners in Mortara (PG146). In this camp, he used to have a responsibility nomination (he came on purpose for this task from another military base).
He (or they) actually made the escape of prisoners possible. He himself was then forced to flee to Switzerland to escape the Nazis for such action; he was probably denounced by the same brother.
I’m contacting you now because I’m looking for testimony to give value to my historical research. Have you ever heard anything about the situation I described? Anything similar?
contact: [email protected]

More information about this camp can be discovered here:

https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=428

Translation for Campi Fascisti main page:

Mortara – Camp for prisoners of war n. 146
Mortara (Pavia) – Italy
Camp type: Prisoner of war camp from March 1943
Source: DPG27
History:
In January 1942, the Prisoners of War Office of the Royal Army established that a labor camp for prisoners of war should be established in the municipality of Mortara, on which all work detachments in the province of Pavia would have to depend (see PGGR10 and PGMT01) .

The PG labor camp N. 146 of Mortara officially enters into operation in March 1943 (see DPG42).

Research into this POW labor camp is still ongoing.

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 146/VI represents work camp VI of PG 146. 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.