Talk by Dr. Aldo Manos
Conference / Talk (in English)
by Dr. Aldo Manos
NDARUGU Camp 360
and the
Italian Prisoners of War
in Kenya
For more than five years, between 1941 and 1947, when 21,500 British citizens lived in Kenya, they were vastly out-numbered by the 55,000 Italian prisoners of war, spread over eleven POW camps.
Of these, only one, Camp No. 360 at Ndarugu, that held some 10,000 prisoners, has miraculously escaped sub-division and new constructions. It was “discovered” by Mr. Manos in 2007, with the church and the monument built by the prisoners almost intact. In 2011 they were gazetted by the Government as “monuments of the history of Kenya”.
The talk will describe them and will dwell on the life of the prisoners in Kenya: their work, their escapes, the mail they exchanged with their families, the memoirs they published after returning to Italy. The talk will be accompanied by the projection of some fifty old photographs collected through the internet.
Dr. Aldo Manos holds degrees in Law and in Political Science from the University of Genoa.
He served as an official of the United Nations for thirty years and came to Kenya in 1973 with a small
group of staff to open the UNEP and Habitat offices. He retired as a director in 1992 becoming a University professor and a consultant to the Italian Government, the EU and private companies.
Material & photographs used in this conference will be included in a book soon to be published.
FREE ENTRY
At Italian Institute of Culture
on Thursday, 15th May 2014at 7.00pm.
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Grenadier Tower – 6th floor (opposite Jacaranda Hotel) Westlands
Tel.: (020) 4451266 / 0733 624834 – Email: iicnairobi@esteri.it – Website: www.iicnairobi.esteri.it