Memories of Number 1 Internment Camp Harare

June 10, 1940 - onward

Mr. Virgilio Vincenzo Garlzlo

This camp was for German and Italian families.

When Italy joined Germany in the war against England, we were arrested and put in camp with the Germans. I was only 12 years old at the time. The living conditions at the camp were quite reasonable and food was quite ample. The living quarters were for family units. The meals were prepared by cooks in separate kitchens for Italians and Germans because of the different eating habits. We also had separate dining rooms. The kitchens had wood burning stoves and the wood was chopped and cut by the internees themselves. The firewood was also chopped for hot water for the bathrooms.

The camps consisted of an inner barbed wire fence about 12 foot high and an outer fence which was of high voltage and if any animal came in contact with the fence the alarm would go off and the guards would run around the outside of the fence to see what had set the alarm off. We were not guarded by the police but by the army who were very nice and friendly to us always very helpful. We had a football field and a Boche field in the camp. We also had two lady teachers from outside the camp come to give the children lessons. We also had at a later stage Italian lessons as a lot of us could not speak Italian, only our Piemonti dialect.

In around 1943 we were allowed to go out of the camp for walks in groups and children were taken to town to the bioscope in the "Black Maria".

At the ending of the war we all went to Norton 30 km from town. We spent another 2 years there but this place had no fences and we were practically free. We remained there for 2 years as the government did not know what to do with us. They kept saying that we might be repatriated back to Germany and Italy. Eventually some Germans were sent back to Germany but most of us Italians were, set out free. Hoping this letter will help with your enquiries.

Mr. Virgilio Vincenzo Garlzlo.
16 May 2012
HARARE, ZIMBABWE

End

Photographs from this period are included below.

Please note that many of the Italians worked on farms in the area and the photograph below is marked:-

Glenara Farm, Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, 160 acres in one on field of potatoes grown for Troops in Europe 1943-44. Italian prisoners helped to grow and maintain farm equipment.

Herbert Newmarch

Photograph is stamped J.R. Cooksey, 65 Second Street, Salisbury

End

Eddy Norris records his thanks and appreciation to Ermeilio curator of the Zonderwater Block Museum just outside Pretoria.

I visited this museum and was truly surprised at the wonderful work completed to retian their heritage. At Zonderwater there are over 250 graves of those that died in this camp.

In South Africa there were 18 camps, many f the pass road were built by these chaps.

I think it would be disrespectful of me to try and attempt to put more information down, simply said, I am not qualified and have requested Ermeilo to consider putting a brief report together for ORAFs.

I would also like to request the History Society of Zimbabwe to see and hopefully make available to ORAFs and pamphlets or reports on the chaps in Southern Rhodesia.

Comments are always welcome, please mail them to Eddy Norris at orafs11@gmail.com

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Ref. Rhodesia

The following information was greater than the permitted number of text permitted under comments and I now append Mike's Story.
Mike Taylor (UBHS) Writes:-
I have been fascinated by the comments about this grand old house. I re-attach the piece I wrote earlier, with a few amendments. Nothing further (of relevance) could be ascertained. How interesting Bob Manser attended a talk on the house all those years ago. I am very interested in the provenance of the house - and that it passed through so many hands and is now a restaurant- and would love to know more. I have somewhere in my scrapbooks a photocopy of a watercolour painted by my mother, Molly Brooks, of Lorelei as we knew it. Hopefully I can lay my hand to it!

Thank you again for all the interesting snippets you bring to enrich our lives.

Mikes recollection;:-

I read with interest of what you refer to as the spook house, and would like to add a personal flavour to the story, if I may. The house, Lorelei, as we knew it, (just inside the front door hung a framed translation of the song The Lorelei) belonged to a dear relation of mine - we called her ‘aunt’; she was in fact my father Neville Brooks’ father William Arthur’s sister, Millicent Williams (nee Brooks), so my Great Aunt. She was married to Vernon Williams, and they ran a dairy farm there. Of their three children, only one reached adulthood, as it were. Billy was killed, at about 18 years old, we believe by a milking stool at the hands of an inebriated help in the dairy; Fairy, the baby daughter died of diphtheria, and Bob (NAF) Williams was the third.

He and his family, his wife Marize, and children Michael, Prudence and Christopher lived in the house built on the property, named Chirimba. Marize’s sister Claire was married to a man (John Dale) who was one of only two survivors on the oil tanker, the ‘SS Doryssa’ which was torpedoed near Durban. None of the Williams children have married, and all live elsewhere.

Lorelei, when we knew it, was an imposing stone - unpainted - and set among rock formations, all with names. Bee Rock, Swimming Pool Rock, (there was a pool in amongst the rocks and one could dive from some at varying heights depending on one’s level of bravery...)and Dairy Rock are just some that spring to mind. Under Bee rock, thus named as it was festooned with enormous dripping hives, was the little family graveyard.

Vernon did not like indoor plumbing and there was a long-drop outside, under Lav Rock naturally. When he died Auntie Mill had a loo built upstairs just outside her bedroom, on what was really the roof. It was quite scary to go, literally outside, from the landing to use it.

As a family we used to gather every Sunday for afternoon tea, presided over by Auntie Mill, and a proper tea was beautifully served, with bread and butter, sandwiches, cakes, scones and jam - the lot.  After tea the children played outside, the men repaired to the Billiards Room, and the women folk sat in the sitting room. We used to play a quaint game called Jumbalo, (which was a complicated version of ‘open gates’) on the huge sweeping sandy driveway.  As evening drew in we gathered once more in the sitting room and Auntie Mill would lead us on the piano in songs such as ‘Daisy, Daisy ...’ Hungry children could eat bread and egg-in-a-cup (which had been prepared earlier and left on the old stove).

Huge extended family gatherings - Williams, Brooks, Singleton, Cummings, Wilsons, Parkers - took place at Christmas, where an elaborate series of games was a pre-dinner special feature. Divided young with old, we would undertake various tasks as disparate as picking up marbles with chopsticks, cutting tape with nail-scissors, guessing the provenance of ties, naming the famous faces ... before sitting down to a sumptuous Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings. I had an early lesson in graciousness from my aunt. Sitting next to her, I noticed she had put mayonnaise on her Christmas Pudding, instead of cream, and when I called her attention to it, she said it was bad manners to cavil about food and ate it, uncomplainingly, to the last crumb.

Bobby drove a beautiful grey Bentley, and Marize a dashing white Jag. Vernon had a car in the garage, but I do not remember seeing it on the road, nor its make.

We had many happy times in that gracious old home, and were unaware of its provenance, as children are. I have not heard of its later owners, but knew it housed BSAP members. My immediate family and I left Zimbabwe in 1981, and have often talked of Lorelei and its happy associations. Our extended family live scattered across the globe, and of those venerable old spirits of my father’s generation and the one of which Auntie Millie was a typical example - sadly they are no more. So, I have no one to ask if my recollections are correct, but I think they are pretty accurate.

End