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Guest Lauryelline

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Guest Lauryelline

Hello everybody,

I'm very glad to join this forum because I'm searching some information regarding POW camp Lodge moor in Sheffield.

My grandfather was an Italian prisoner in Lodge Moor Camp until 1946 (I have his original identity document done inside the camp with the number of the prisoner).

I wolud like to know something more about that camp and the prisoners and maybe something about his life during that period. He came back home but, as I could not meet him, I could not ask him about those years.

Does the city have some official documents/information regarding the prisoners (a list for example), local books, photos/images or video describing the life in Lodge Moor Camp during the period of the war?

Where could I ask or find something (to a museum, the City Hall or the University)?

I would appreciate any kind of suggestion.

Thank you very much!

Ciao

Lauryelline

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Hi and welcome. I don't know whether you are able to access Facebook, but there's a group of local historians who have a group on there with information and pictures about the camp, though mostly about later in the war when it was occupied by German PoW's. It's called the Redmires POW Camp Community Heritage Project, (Redmires was the official name of the camp) and I'm sure they'd love to hear from you and about your grandfather.

If you look at this forum and search for Redmires you'll find quite a bit of information too.

There's also quite a bit on this forum. Try using this dedicated Google search facility.

The Italian Pow's did a lot of work out of the camp, building roads and houses, working on farms, and seem to have been quite popular with the people of Sheffield.

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Guest Lauryelline

Hi and thank you very much for your suggestions. I will follow them.

Do you think I can find something also in the National Archive in Shoreham Street?

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The archive at Shoreham Street is local rather than national, but try them, they're very helpful. However the PoW camps were administered nationally so you might find more in the national records. You could try emailing the National Archives http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ they may be able to point you in the right direction.

Your grandfather may have been recorded as a prisoner at Redmires until 1946, but I suspect he left the camp earlier. Many Italian prisoners not only worked outside the camp, but were housed elsewhere. For example a number worked at a garage in Sheffield and were accommodated on the premises, I'm told leaving some art work on the walls of the rooms they occupied.

I think they mostly left the camp after Italy capitulated, because in the later years of the war Redmires housed German PoW's, some of them hard-line Nazis.

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Pardon a late observation by a new boy who found Bayleaf's comments interesting on two counts.

We had close relatives in Derbyshire on the 84 Buxton route. One singledecker three times a day and busy with it, and often well filled by Hunters Bar. To make sure we would go off to the start at the Victoria station. This day the station  approach  was occupied it's full length by  a string of commandeered buses  all khaki painted with army drivers. A trainload of Italian P.O.W.s had arrived and were being urged not very effectively into them. No hurry, their war was over and that never changed. We later found out that these several hundred were the first arrivals at the Lodge Moor camp.

     Time passed and after National Service I joined a firm.of heavy engineers in Lincoln  We acquired a Training Officer from Mid  Wales who recommended to us a  foreign farmer friend  in another village .Sitting talking to Luigi one evening  I mentioned the Lodge Moor Camp incident more than  thirty years earlier  and got an unlikely response. He was one of them and in no uncertain terms told me their opinion.of Lodge Moor. I remember  it started with cold, damp, muddy, isolated, thoroughly depressing, and went on from there in fractured English. As his family had a citrus farm on the slopes of Mount Etna,  a culture shock was inevitable. He was put out to local  farm work which suited him, and as Bayleaf noted, he was packed off to   live in on  another farm which turned out to be ini what was then Radnorshire and left to get on with it.without much supervision.The classic story book;  did well,  married the farmer's daughter, took over the farm in due course, ran it successfully  and merged in with the locals.

"The Star" quotes 1944 as the date the camp filled with German P.O.W.s. Whilst we saw  Italians, I don't remember seeing the Germans about the city except for one occasion. I gather they were more senior in rank and.still strongly Nazi. The Sheffield Philharmonic Society organised  concerts in the City Hall. At the end it was permissible to go round the back to get autographs in the artistes  room behind the platform. I did and got the biggest shock. Talking to the soloist, a. German refugee pianist, were three officers, all in immaculate grey uniforms jack boots you could see your face in, standing bolt upright, looking as if they owned the place, still obviously serving army officers. This was very shortly after  V.E.. Day and l began to wonder who had won. Later  came thoughts as to how much freedom they had and  how had  they got from and back to the camp. Unlike the placid  Italians, I felt uneasy. as there was no obvious sign of an escort.

It was  all long time back  but it is still quite clear in my mind  An incident I have never forgotten.

 

 

 

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On 1/6/2013 at 20:11, Lauryelline said:

Hello everybody,

 

I'm very glad to join this forum because I'm searching some information regarding POW camp Lodge moor in Sheffield.

 

My grandfather was an Italian prisoner in Lodge Moor Camp until 1946 (I have his original identity document done inside the camp with the number of the prisoner).

 

I wolud like to know something more about that camp and the prisoners and maybe something about his life during that period. He came back home but, as I could not meet him, I could not ask him about those years.

 

Does the city have some official documents/information regarding the prisoners (a list for example), local books, photos/images or video describing the life in Lodge Moor Camp during the period of the war?

Where could I ask or find something (to a museum, the City Hall or the University)?

 

I would appreciate any kind of suggestion.

 

Thank you very much!

 

Ciao

Lauryelline

Im sorry to say i don't think anyone wanted to talk about the war years back then, i know its fascinating my grandfather was joseph mcnulty and he used to escort the prisoner of war to lodge moor camp, but he never wanted to talk about those years when he died in the late 1970's it was still tabu in some households not like today

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