Untold Stories of Loss: Mourning the ‘Enemy’ in Second World War Britain

Abstract

Italy's declaration of war on Britain in June 1940 had dramatic consequences for Italian immigrant families living within Britain, signalling their traumatic construction as the ‘enemy within’. Male Italians between the ages of sixteen and seventy who had been resident in Britain for less than twenty years and all those who had been identified by MI5 as members of Italian Fascist clubs were interned, with those categorized as the ‘most dangerous’ internees deported overseas. Tragedy struck when a ship transporting internees to Canada, the Arandora Star, was torpedoed killing over 800 people, including over 400 Italians. This article explores the ways in which the disaster was recalled within the personal narratives of descendants of the victims, reflecting upon how bereaved families endured their loss within a wider context of wartime anti-Italianism and how aspects of the grieving process remained unresolved through the subsequent decades. It also reflects upon the increasing memorialization of the disaster, which intensified after the interviews had taken place, and its implication for the author, as a historian working with personal testimonies.

Keywords:

• loss
• narratives
• grief
• Italians
• Arandora Star
• memorialization
• mourning
• war

Notes

1 Hansard. 1944. vol. 400 col. 1064, 26 May.

2 The Arandora Star Missing Persons List, reproduced by Colpi, states that 446 Italians died and this figure has been widely adopted (1991: 278). Drawing upon Blue Star Line records and The Lloyds War Loss Records Williams states that, ‘470 Italians lost their lives and 243 Germans as well as thirty seven British soldiers and fifty five crew members’ (1997:107). NA, KV, 4/337 contains embarkation lists for the Arandora Star which indicate 486 Italian deaths, a figure used by Stent (1980: 105).

3 O’Sullivan, an Irish-born lawyer, was, like Hinsley, a key figure in the Sword of the Spirit movement. For more information, see Somerville, Henry. ‘The Sword of the Spirit’ Canadian Catholic Historical Association Report 9 (1941–2): 65–8.

4 In the Imperial War Museum interview, Woodruff addresses the fact that she was perceived as being ‘paid by Mussolini’ because her committee drew on Italian funds held by the Brazilian embassy.

5 Portelli uses this phrase in relation to the children of those who were killed during the 1944 Fosse Ardeatine massacre in Rome, a Nazi atrocity committed as an alleged reprisal for resistance activity.

6 Both these items are in private hands.

7 The Book of Revelation 20:13 states, ‘And the sea gave up the dead which were in it’.

8 In particular Zorza campaigned for recognition for the survivors of the disaster. In 1990, the prestigious civic title of Cavalieri (Knight) was awarded to twenty-one Arandora Star survivors still living in Britain by the Italian government (Ugolini, 2011: 227).