Escape Routes to Switzerland

In the days immediately following 8 September 1943 Italy, at a time when the invading German forces were rapidly assuming control, faced with the urgent problem of dealing with Allied escapers of war who had fled the prisoner-of-war camps, many brave Italians had fearlessly resolved to act with determination to recuperate what was still saveable of their moral and spiritual patrimony: they immediately began to organise a recovery plan for these escapers.

In Milan the Clandestine Military Organisation entrusted engineer Giuseppe Bacciagaluppi with the task of setting up this project within the framework of political and military activities of newly established CLN (Committee of National Liberation). He quickly developed a large organisational plan which was still functioning after his arrest on 4 April 1944.

Bacciagaluppi's final report to the Allied authorities offers a concise and objective view of the highly effective work carried out by a large group of Italians under conditions of extreme difficulty, despite serious risks of being sent to concentration camps in Germany or being executed by firing squad. It  is held in the INSMLI ARCHIVE in  MILAN:

Fondo Bacciagaluppi, Busta 2, Fascicolo 13, Final Report on the Activity of the CLNAI on behalf of Allied POWs.

In his introduction to the report Bacciagaluppi wrote that:

'It deals with the activity carried out by the 'Service' but cannot provide data on the help offered by countless individuals - men and women of every class and condition, landowners and industrialists, intellectuals, professionals, clergymen, artisans, farm labourers and factory workers - who in each region, in the cities and in the countryside, and in every conceivable circumstance - gave what help they could, spontaneously and selflessly, to the allied escapers, offering them accommodation and hiding them, protecting them and assisting them in all possible ways, thus supporting and facilitating the organised work of the Service.'

IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT NOT ALL THE ESCAPERS WHO ARRIVED IN SWITZERLAND HAD BEEN HELPED IN THEIR ENTERPRISE BY GIIUSEPPE BACCIAGALUPPI'S ORGANISATION. FOR A COMPLETE PICTURE CONSULT findmypast.co.uk

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