People often think that the Nazis came up with the concept of the concentration camps. In fact, it was the British, who invented concentration camps, which were first established in South Africa by the Brits during the Boer Wars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
During World War II, the Nazis weren’t the only ones with concentration camps either. Italy had several Camps both inside of Italy and its colonies.
Ferramonti di Tarsia was one of those camps. The camp was located in Ferramonti, a rural locality 6 km south of Tarsia, by the river Crati. The area is next to the current A2 motorway exit Tarsia Sud. It was the largest of 15 concentration camps established by Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini during the summer of 1940.
The Italians began building Ferramonti on 4 June 1940, less than a week before Italy entered World War II. The arrest of Jews began on 15 June, and prisoners began arriving at the camp on 20 June. From 1940–1943, more than
3,800 Jews were imprisoned at the Camp: 3,682 were foreign-born Jews, and
141 were Italians. In general, Italian-born Jews were not imprisoned unless
they participated in anti-Fascist activities.
At first, the physical conditions of the Camp were not that bad. However, as the situation of the Jews went downhill, so did the living conditions. Despite all this, Ferramonti was never a concentration camp like those that the Nazis ran. The relationship between the prisoners and camp staff was relatively peaceful. The prisoners were not tortured or executed and were allowed to receive packages, visit sick relatives, and participate in cultural activities. In fact, four couples were married at the Camp, and 21 children were born there.
Apart from a friendly fire incident in August 1943, which killed four internees, and two deaths from an explosion outside the Camp in December 1943, the only other deaths were from natural causes, and most survived their imprisonment unharmed. About seventy Chinese traders and street vendors were also placed at the Ferramonti Camp.
However, they may have had freedoms. Basically, despite the that the prisoners hadn’t committed any crimes, they were still incarcerated.
The prisoners at Ferramonti were released on 4 September 1943, six weeks after Mussolini was overthrown by his Fascist Grand Council.
Ferramonti di Tarsia was an exception.
In total, between the 1930s and 1943, more than 22,000 prisoners were murdered in the Italian Camps, and most of it took place in the colonies.
Sources
https://www.parchiletterari.com/parchi/ernst-bernhard/campo.php
https://www.lestradedelcuore.it/campo-di-internamento-di-ferramonti-di-tarsia/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Italian_concentration_camps
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