PG 60 Colle Di Compito

from: http://en.capannori-terraditoscana.org/index.php/territory/archeology.html
Near Lucca, in the municipality of Capannori, we find an ex concentration camp, P.G N.60, opened in the September of 1943, in the fraction of Colle di Compito. The history of this concentration camp began in the area called “Il Pollino” that belonged to the Ravano family (ex Gherardesca) and, at the beginning of 1940, was used as a prison camp for english enemies. This camp rises at the end of an area called “Padule”, under the village of Castelvecchio and next to the railway station of Colle, that links Lucca to Pontedera and connected Lucca to Piaggio until 1958. After 1943, month of September, in the camp were imprisoned both civils and political prisoners, jews and foreign enemies. They were crowded together into narrow shacks and in total promiscuity. To worsen the situation there were also the climate and the position of the camp: the proximity to marshes, the hot temperatures, the damp and the swarms of mosquitos.
Here the conditions were bad :overcrowded tents ,a very meagre water supply for 4000 men , no red cross parcels ,great heat and mosquitoes . Eventually the camp was condemned by the Red Cross and dysentery was rife.

PM 3200

There is more information about this camp here:

https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=355

Translation for Campi Fascisti main page:

Colle di Compito – Camp for prisoners of war n. 60
Colle di Compito, fraction of Capannori (Lucca) – Italy
Camp type: Prisoner of war camp from July 1942
Source: DPG27
History: In operation since July 1942, the P.G. N. 60 of Colle Compito – a fraction of the municipality of Capannori in the province of Lucca – is set up to intern non-commissioned officers and simple soldiers who are prisoners of war of the Italians during the Second World War. The camp consists of tents (DPG27).

On 1st August 1942 there were 2,465 prisoners of war (DPG16) in the camp, which rose to 3,970 on 30th September. On that date the p.g. they are divided as follows: 2,224 British, 1,737 South African, 3 Middle Eastern, 2 Indian, 3 Serbian and 1 of unspecified nationality (DPG23 and DPG24).

In anticipation of winter, the Army General Staff decides to transform some camps – including that of Colle di Compito – from ‘attendato’ to ‘baracato’. That is to say to replace the tents under which the prisoners are housed, with wooden or masonry barracks (PGVA05). However, already at the end of August, some unspecified difficulties (PGVA06), impose the folding of the tents, the transfer elsewhere (it is not specified where) of all the prisoners of war, and the suspension for the whole winter of the operation itself of the camp (PGVA10). Thus, starting in the fall of 1942, the P.G. no. 60 of Colle Compito “is folded for the winter”. (see DPG28).

On 31 December 1942 an order was given for the construction of some works necessary for the reopening of the camp (DVA46). However, in March 1943 the camp has not yet been reopened (DPG27). On April 23, 1943, it was proposed to use some prisoners of war taken from camp no. 82 of Laterina to complete the work of reopening the camp. In particular, it is proposed – to avoid the inconveniences that led to the closure of the camp last winter – to “move the enclosed area to the opposite side of the current one; set up the tents on the terraces to the north and south of the new area using the central space for rallies and as a sports field for the PCs” (DPG50).

Surely the P.G. no. 60 is back in operation in August 1943. We deduce this from an expense report in which some companies report – among many others – some deliveries made to the camp in the months of August and September 1943 (AC02117).

Thanks to some direct testimonies, Italo Galli (Galli, 2005, pp. 53-55) has instead reconstructed the epilogue of the Colle di Compito prisoner of war camp.

On 10 September 1943, faced with the refusal to hand over control of the camp to them, some German soldiers killed the camp commander, Colonel Cione, and two other Italian soldiers with a burst of machine guns. Subsequently, the camp will first be looted by the population (see annex in AC02112), and subsequently readapted as a camp for civilian internees managed by the Italian Social Republic (see plan in AC02099 and project in AC02100).

Note: Our research on Italian POW camps is still ongoing.

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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.