Dear Donna, The link below will take you to a page at the Australain National Archives which have a range of information on prisoners of war held in australia. Large numbers of Italians were POWs in Australia and as part of their internment were required to work in the community under parole (a promise to be good). A large number ended up working at fruit picking and were billetted with local families. "... were kept open in families". From my memory of a recent programme on TV in Australia ALL of the italian POWs went back to Italy but about one third ended up returning to australia. A large number ended up back in the fruit growing areas which have become very italianised. A lot of them have become very succesful farmers. http://www.naa.gov.au/The_Collection/Family_History/other_records.html#alien s Aliens, internees and prisoners of war - World War II In 1941 the Australian government accepted a large number of prisoners of war from the Middle East, with a further transfer of Italian prisoners in 1943. A total of 25 720 prisoners of war were held in Australia during World War II: 1 651 Germans, 18 432 Italians and 5 637 Japanese. Prisoners of war were housed in specially built camps and guarded by Citizen Military Force reservists. There were a number of escapes by POWs, the most serious being the Cowra breakout in August 1944. The POWs were not repatriated immediately after the war because of a shortage of shipping, but all except a small number of escapees had been sent home by January 1947. see also http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/pow/pow.htm PRISONER OF WAR AND INTERNMENT CAMPS IN AUSTRALIA DURING WW2 cheers Col -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, 16 April 2002 5:28 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [AUS-GERMAN] WW II prisoners of war I am inquiring for a friend about the locations of prisoner of war camps in Australia. It is our understanding that his father was held in Australia and that the prisoners "... were kept open in families." Although this friend lives in Germany, his father was Italian. Since there was no AUS-ITA list I am trying this one. Thanks. Mit freundlichen Grüßen Donna Mayor <[email protected]> RootsWeb: CIAVARELLA-L, ITA-PUGLIA, ITA-PIEDMONT ______________________________