With a theatrical intervention on the ingenuity of the IMI in prison camps, by the GURB company.
Rho – As part of the celebrations of the Liberation Day on April 25th, at 5.30 pm it will be held in the Conference room of the Tourist Infopoint in Piazza San Vittore, a theatrical intervention on the ingenuity of the IMI in prison camps, by the GURB company.
History of Italian military internees
Italian military internees (Italienische Militär-Internierten – IMI) was the official name given by the German authorities to the Italian soldiers captured, rounded up and deported to the territories of the Third Reich in the days immediately following the Armistice of Cassibile (8 September 1943).
After disarmament, Italian soldiers and officers were faced with the choice of continuing to fight in the ranks of the German army or, failing that, being sent to detention camps in Germany. Only ten percent accepted the draft. The others, around 650 thousand, were considered “prisoners of war” and later changed status, becoming “military internees”.
As such, they were forced into forced labor and removed from the control of the International Red Cross and from the protection of the Geneva Convention of 1929, also signed by Germany, which prescribed humanitarian treatment.
A network of active and passive resistance against Nazism and fascism soon developed among the IMI: cells and even clandestine radios were organised.
With the end of the war the odyssey of the IMI also came to an end, and they were repatriated by the liberating armies. The return took place on overloaded freight trains and there were many fatal accidents due to overcrowding. Upon returning to some IMIs they were even asked to finish their military service: this was to indicate that the IMIs were not welcomed with due recognition.
On Friday 8 September 2023, exactly eighty years after the armistice that dispersed the Italian army and forced its members to choose between joining the Italian Social Republic or opposing the Nazi-fascist regime, the municipal administration and ANPI Rho have remembered the tragic experience of the Italian military internees of Rho. Thanks to ANPI’s research, 48 Rhodes IMIs have been identified.
The brochure created by ANPI and the Municipality of Rho presented on 8 September 2023 was integrated with new IMI rhodensi names and will be available in Piazza San Vittore.
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