Wanted: Italian POW camp info for my grandfather: 214200 Jan Adriaan VENTER, SA Tank Corps

Hi! My grandfather was Jan Adriaan Venter born 26/10/1922, he was a Private in the SA Tank Corps (service number 214200). On 21/6/1942 he was captured in Tobruk. From ICRC Archives information I have received, he was detained in a transit camp on 28/11/1942 (list dated 16/2/1943) and was then transferred to Stalag VIIIC in Poland. Could anyone with a list of South African POWs in Italy please let me know which camp he was in during the time he was in Italy? His POW number in German hands was 75561. Much appreciated

 

Hi Cindy & welcome to the forum.

Your grandfather completed the standard UK government questionaire on his release in 1945 & gave his camps as follows, I'll try & up load the whole form later though others may beat me to that. Other forum members who know more about Italian pow camps will be along here for sure.



https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discover...fab77b8abb&_phsrc=pqM1&_phstart=successSource

Travers

 

Travers, thank you so much for your reply. I appreciate it!

 

Suspect that while in Benghazi he may have worked the docks as well.

All the best

Andreas

 

Cindy,

Welcome aboard. There is plenty of knowledge and expertise here.

We always recommend applying for the Service Record. It is the definitive account of his service. I can recommend a South African researcher. See: Researcher in the South African Archives

On your current information he has not appeared here before today.

It helps to add a ‘tag’ when you create a thread, only you can do this. It is for the formation / corps involved or a theme like intelligence. Searching tags can identify threads, otherwise it takes a bit longer.

Some help via PM next; which is a now four pg. PDF. Also available on: WW2 Soldier Research - Tips and Links for New Researchers (update) Plus: How to Start a new Thread / Edit Post / Upload Image

There are a good number of threads here about the transfer from Italian POW camps to German camps after the Italian Armistice in September 1943. See: Italy 1943: the 'Stay Put Order'

Italian POW camps have a prefix PG followed by a two digit number, so for his camp it is PG85. Searching here with PG85 returns a small number of threads.

His German POW Camp will be Stalag VIII C or VIIIC; perhaps group of camps. Not all camps are known here, a simple search here has a number of threads and an indication it was at Sagan (Eastern Germany) and they were marched west in 'The Long March'.

 

Hi

Sorry time has beaten me re posting full pow questionaire, will try tomorrow if no one else has done it.

Travers

 

Here is the full pow questionaire.






Travers

 

Thanks Travers, much appreciated for your time and expertise

 

Hello Cindy,

I have been interested in South African prisoners of war for many years now. I have only just picked up on your request as it wasn't in the Prisoners of War Section ( perhaps one of the moderators will move it?) and have one or two things to add.

Liberation Questionnaires

These are a wonderful resource and now on line. They should be taken as an indication - and not as 'the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth' - as in order to interpret them fully some background knowledge is useful if not essential.

They are a good indication of what the prisoner did and where he went but not everyone filled them in willingly and sometimes they omitted parts which they didn't think were important - which is true in your grandfather's case - or even lied deliberately, as did one submariner whose personal diary I have read. The dates in the diary and on the form were out by a month - done on purpose, his daughter told me, as by May 1945 he no longer trusted anyone in authority.

Your grandfather wrote that he was held in PG 85 until September 43. This is not the case. No prisoners were in that camp at that time - the last were moved out after the Allies had landed in Sicily in July. Many prisoners had been moved out in May - I have the copies of two escape reports which state just that:

One is the report of Corporal John Haddick, Royal Army Service Corps, who wrote that he left PG 85 for PG70 (Monturano in the Marche regione of Italy ) in May 1943. From there many men went on to northern work camps. The last group left PG 85 in August 1943 for PG 60 Colle di Compito near Lucca in Tuscany (I have the testimony in Italian by one of the guards who accompanied them). All but one of the men in this last group were black South Africans.

It is going to be very difficult to find out where your grandfather spent the months between May and September '43 but sometimes information turns up unexpectedly and I will look out for him during my general researches. One last thought is that he might still have been in Puglia on one of the farms or even at Brindisi airfield.

In the meantime, there is a wealth of photographs of PG 85 here.

Best wishes,

Vitellino (Janet)