One Of The "Darkest" Chapters of Australia's History: Italian Internment Camps | Time Travels

I want to pitch you an idea for a movie

It's a nail-biting drama that involves murder, political intrigue and a love that conquers all

Not bad, huh? But it needs something else. What about a vital document that lay hidden for 50 years

only to be discovered in the most unexpected of places? Our story opens in wartime Australia

It's the early 1940s and tens of thousands of Aussie troops are being sent across the world to fight Nazi Germany and its ally Italy

Meanwhile, Australian Italians are rounded up and made prisoners in their own country

regardless of whether they support the fascist dictator Mussolini or not. I'm just working on a few storyboards

It's 1942 at an internment camp in South Australia and an anti-fascist by the name of Francisco Fantin

gets into an argument with Mussolini supporter Bruno Cassotti. Cassotti flies off the handle and before you know it

Fantin is dead. The public is shocked and there outrage at the realisation we thrown the good guys in with the bad Oh dear The Italians left on the outside start writing letters

hundreds of them in a bid to save the anti-fascists stuck in the internment camps

They form a group called Italia Libra, or Free Italy. This is good stuff

but my film is going to need some deep research. Their goals fundamentally were the overthrow of Mussolini

and to support the Allied war effort to enable that. At the grassroots level

they sought the release of Italian anti-fascists from the internment camps on behalf of their loved ones who were eking out an existence

while their fathers, their brothers, et cetera, were interned. Now this is where the love story comes into it

My leading lady is a character called Angelina Zandona. Now picture this

Her husband Tony is sent to an internment camp because a neighbour spots him with a camera and thinks he's a spy

Angelina now struggles to run their vineyard alone with three young children

And now a good time to tell you this isn really a film script This whole story is true And this is Angelina letter to Italia Libra Now despite the beautiful handwriting in Italian this is the letter of a desperate woman

Antonio had already been interned for more than two and a half years, slaving away in the desert, as the letter says

He was out in central Australia. He hadn't seen anyone in his family for more than a year

This is a translation of Angelina's letter, and there's a paragraph here that will break your heart

I cannot but pronounce cursing words when I see so many scoundrels loafing and drinking all day

They work two days a week, enough to buy their wine, and I must keep home from school a 12-year-old child

because I cannot find anyone to help. It's just terribly sad. I should be grateful if you could tell me to whom I could go to get some help

Since I cannot go on with this harsh life, Yours most obliged, Angelina Zandona

With the help of Italia Libra, Angelina's letter reached all the way to Australia's Attorney-General, Doc Evatt

And in 1944, her beloved Antonio was released into her arms. Nothing like a Hollywood ending

Well, this is nothing like a Hollywood ending, because there's another twist to this tale

After the war, the Italia Libra letters went missing. Copies of the letters replies from government notes to loved ones all disappeared for 50 years but were found in the most surprising of places

This is Neil Richards. Today, he's a successful real estate agent, but 18 years ago, he was a do-it-yourself renovator trying to strike it rich in the booming property market

It was just an amazing day because we were very busy at the time renovating the house

The person I had working for me was demolishing this old chimney and to our amazement a large box of letters fell out

and almost hit him on the head. What did he say? Well, he was amazed by them and he came to the opinion

that they were valuable and historic and it was him that actually took them to the Mitchell's Library

and they were interested in them and that's how they were preserved. Now, I know what you're thinking

Why were the letters hidden behind the fireplace? Well, it was politics again

After the war came the Cold War, and a lot of the letter writers were worried they'd

be outed as communists if the letters fell into the wrong hands. But luckily, after 50 years, someone found the letters intact, which is just as well

because otherwise you might not believe my story. history doesn't repeat, but it certainly echoes