Italy Magazine followed the lead-up, this year, to the seventieth anniversary of the Arandora Star tragedy, in which 486 British Italian internees were drowned. Rounded up by the British government without consideration for their families, these respectable men who had made their lives in Britain were regarded as a security threat and were treated cruelly by their guards.
On July 1st 1940, 734 of them were put aboard the Arandora Star, which left Liverpool with 1,864 passengers and crew, bound for Canada. On July 2nd she was torpedoed.
Now the tragedy has been turned into a play by Alfo Bernebei, an Italian who has been living in Britain for 40 years, reports the Telegraph. “The Tailor at the Bottom of the Sea” tells the story of a real-life character, anti-fascist campaigner Decio Anzani and a fictional British camp commander. Mr Anzani died in the tragedy.
The play will open in Jesi [Marche] on 4th December and later Mr Bernebei hopes that it will be performed in Britain.
The Arandora Star tragedy remains one of the most ignominious episodes in British war history and the campaign for a government apology continues.
