Saturday, August 13, 2005
Italian WWII POWs Received Heartfelt Welcome in Boston in 1943 -
Boston Globe
The ANNOTICO Report
A Lawyer in the case of cleared but stranded Chinese
(15 Uighurs) detainees at Guantanamo Bay has attempted to use the WWII
Italian POW's experience as a precedent .
I'm unsure of relevance of the legal argument, But this
article has a lot of reference to the Italian WWII POWs in Boston in 1943.
I have deleted most of the info regarding the Guantanamo detainees.
WWII tale
applied to Guantanamo case
Detainees' lawyer cites Boston story
Boston Globe
By Charlie Savage,
August 12, 2005
WASHINGTON -- In 1944, months after Italy had surrendered
to the Allies, life improved for Italian prisoners of war detained at Camp
McKay in South Boston. They could not go home because World War II still
raged, but the United States stopped treating them as POWs.
They moved out of the prison, got jobs at the port, and
attended Mass at St. Leonard's Church in the North End.
Yesterday, the American government's handling of the
Italian soldiers in Boston was put before a federal judge in the case of
cleared but stranded Chinese detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Their Boston-based
lawyer, Sabin Willett, cited the all-but-forgotten slice of Boston history
to bolster his argument that the Bush administration should let his clients
out of the prison.
''The situation of Italian prisoners of war during World
War II is instructive," Willett told the court in a filing that was declassified
yesterday. ''These former enemy combatants were given increased freedom
of movement among the population.
''They held jobs and earned money. Particularly in US
regions that had large Italian-American communities, liberty became the
norm."...
A Justice Department lawyer has likened the Uighurs to
former POWs who were not immediately repatriated at the end of World War
II. But in his new filing, Willett questioned whether that analogy holds,
citing the case of the Italians in Boston.
After Italy surrendered to the Allies on Sept. 3, 1943,
the former POWs moved out of the stockade into better housing on Peddocks
Island in Boston Harbor. They would ride the ferry to jobs at the port,
for which they were paid partially in cash and partially in room and board.
On their days off, they could socialize in the city in groups of 10 to
25 with an Army sergeant chaperon.
Globe archives show that this treatment was somewhat
controversial at the time. A group of American veterans complained that
the government was ''pampering" former enemies.
But military authorities rebuked them, saying they were
trying to abide by the Geneva Conventions in the hope that American POWs
would also be treated well.
Many other Bostonians embraced their presence. On June
4, the Italians were taken to St. Leonard's Church for Mass. Afterward,
crowds cheered them as they were driven through the North End. At the Hatch
Shell, they stopped and sang an Italian song called ''A Bouquet of Flowers,"
posed for pictures, played boccie, and had a picnic, the Globe reported.
''Then as now, the North End of Boston has been home
to large numbers of Italian-Americans," Willett noted. The spirit of welcome
among the Italian Americans was heartfelt."..
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/
washington/articles/2005/08/12/wwii
_tale_applied_to_guantanamo_case/