A piece of history wends
its way back to Cowra
LITTLE did 20-year-old conscript Ramiro Gionotti know what the next seven years held for him when he began his national service with the Italian Army in 1940.
He would spend the next seven years as a Prisoner of War, including two years at the Cowra POW Camp, box in the ring for extra steak rations and learn to sew trousers.
Last week his son Luciano and daughter-in-law Maria Gionotti (pictured right with Mayor of Cowra Bill West and interpreter Maria Bell) returned a treasured remnant – a 70-year-old woollen blanket – from his time in the Cowra camp.
It’s a maroon blanket manufactured in 1942 by the Challenge Woollen Mills, which opened in 1910 in the former Liverpool Paper Mill buildings at the corner of Shepherd and Atkinson St in Sydney’s Liverpool.
Left: The blanket label is still in good condition.
In an interview with CCN on Friday afternoon, with Ms Bell translating, Luciano said his father always spoke highly of Australia and of Cowra.
He says his father said little about his time in as a POW in Bombay, India, other than to say it had been a hard time.
Luciano and wife Maria visited Australia two years ago to trace his late father’s footsteps during his internment here.
During that visit Luciano met Ms Bell, who told him townspeople were keen to collect artefacts from the time the Italian prisoners were held in the camp.
When he arrived back in Italy after the visit, his wife recalled the couple had been given a suitcase full of his father’s wartime memorabilia after he had died, including a blanket from the camp.
That blanket had been particularly valuable on his father’s voyage home because there were no warm sleeping facilities on board.
The couple decided then that if they came to Australia again they would bring the blanket to Cowra.
Last week they fulfilled that desire.
Luciano says he remembers playing on the blanket on the floor at home as a child.
And during the interview Luciano revealed experiences his father related to him about his time in Australia.
He says his father worked on a Cowra district farm caring for the animals, and also formed a friendship with the farmer.
His father had been a keen boxer before World War II, says Luciano, and told camp authorities he was willing to go into the ring.
His offer was accepted and he had numerous matches while he was interned.
According to Luciano, his father competed in fights in both Sydney and Canberra.
The young soldier was keen to box so that he’d be given steak while in training.
Luciano says his father learnd to sew trousers for Australian soldiers when he was moved to Kapooka, near Wagga Wagga.
When Ramiro was finally repatriated to Italy in 1947, Luciano says his father contemplated returning to Australia, but his mother wouldn’t let him.
Ramiro’s sister is still alive and recently celebrated her 100th birthday.
The young Ramiro had found himself in Egypt fighting the 7th British Armoured Division at Buq Buq in 1940.
Ramiro Gionetti was captured on December 11, 1940, along with more than 100,000 other Italians in Buq Buq and surrounding areas.
Right: Captured Italian soldiers being marched away to prison near Buq Buq.
Ramiro was then transported to Bombay where he spent the next four years before being shipped to Australia in 1944.
He arrived at Cowra POW Camp on February 29, 1944, and stayed here for two years before he was moved to a camp at Kapooka.
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