PRISONERS OF HIMALAYA

“YOL – Your Own Locations”

 During the Second World War, as Britain declared war against Germany in 1939, people of German and Italian origins became enemy of the nation and were interned, including in the countries ruled by Britain. Thus, the nationals of enemy countries who were in India, including members of a few mountaineering expeditions who were then climbing in the Indian Himalaya. The most well- known case is that of members of the German expedition who were exploring the slopes of Nanga Parbat, then part of the British Empire. All of them, including Heinrich Harrer and Peter Aufschneiter were interned by the British. They tried to escape to Persia from Karachi, but while waiting for the ship, they were caught and escorted back. They were then shifted to a camp in central India and later on to Dehra Dun.

Similarly, another German expedition climbing in Sikkim in 1937, consisted of German‑Swiss climbers – Ludwig Schmaderer, H. Paidar and E. Grob who had spent six weeks on the Zemu glacier, Sikkim, investigating the approaches of Kangchenjunga. On 26^th September, they made the second ascent of the nearby peak of Siniolchu, which Doug Freshfield called “the most beautiful mountain in the world”. The same three returned there in 1939 and made the first ascent of Tent Peak.

They were returning from the high mountains around the Zemu glacier, oblivious of what was happening in the world outside. Grob who was of Swiss nationality was allowed to leave for Europe, but the other two being Germans, had to be detained. This was the start of a great saga that introduced Tibet and Spiti to the world, through the stories of Harrer and Schmaderer . The strange events that followed were almost like a surreal dream. These events are well documented, but at the same time, the story of a large number of Italians who were brought to India as prisoners of war is lesser known.

The Prisoners at Y O L

When the Second World War started in Europe, India’s involvement was total. Many Indian soldiers were sent by the British to fight for the Allied troops, just as they had been during the First World War. All cantonments in India were busy with the preparations.

Over the many years of war, many opposition soldiers surrendered to the Allied forces, in particular the Italian soldiers fighting in the hot almost desert like regions of North Africa. The numbers of these prisoners soon grew, and it was getting difficult to house them and keep a watchful eye on them in Africa. It seemed irrational to spare valuable men and resources to house so many prisoners.

It was then decided to transport the prisoners to India. They would be out of the theatre of war, and there would be no need to entail elaborate security measures for them and there would be no stress on food supplies. The Italians were loaded onto a ship proceeding to India that served the purpose. From Bombay (now Mumbai) they were transported to the foothills of the Himalaya, near Palampur at the foot of Dharamsala. Most of the prisoners had never been to Asia and would not survive the heat of the Indian plains. They had no means of escape and not knowing the terrain or language, they had no option but to stay within the camp.

Facilities were created at the camp, which was for thousands of prisoners, like series of bunkers with bed, toilets and kitchen, to be run by cooks and to be helped by the Italians. The Italian officers were housed separately and in more comfort. A small hospital was established, and a workshop started functioning where furniture was created as wood was available in plenty. There were no villages in the vicinity and all the supplies were brought in by army trucks. The British called the cantonment “Young Officers Living” (YOL). But the Italian prisoners mocked at this as they were neither young nor was the place worth living for!

Some special innovations were introduced at the camp. A currency especially for the inmates was introduced. Lowest was “one-Ana” and the highest Rs 25. They were printed in bright colours and designed very differently from other currencies. They could be used to buy items in the camp and in some small shops outside the camp. The receiver had to gather these notes, like coupons, and exchange them for actual currency from the prison office. Lists were created, like “Movement Order” for men and a detailed list of materials purchased was maintained – all managed by the Italians as it benefitted them.

Some of the Italians were artists and artisans, apart from being soldiers. They created statues of mud and wood, painted and made stonework which has lasted beyond their stay here. With all these activities they led an easy life, but one desire always remained in them – that of Freedom. The area is surrounded by the peaks of the Dhaula Dhar range. Many peaks and passes rise from the plains nearby to about 15,000 feet. The attraction of these hills lured them and there were a handful of them who did try to escape by climbing the hills and peaks and trying to cross the passes to the north. But would eventually get caught by the local police who in turn were helped by the villagers and would be brought back to the camp. Heinrich Harrer was amongst the few fortunate ones who escaped to Tibet from a similar camp in Dehra Dun. Unfortunately, none could escape from Yol. The Dhaula Dhar range has no direct access to Tibet. Moreover, there were two major army Cantonments, one at McLeod Ganj above Dharamasala and the other at Dalhousie and the hills were always patrolled.

The camp was a free place, and the prisoners were allowed to roam around freely in the camp and the surrounding areas. There were no security check points except beyond a certain distance as the prisoners had nowhere to go. If any prisoner tried to go beyond the jurisdiction, the villagers would almost “arrest” him and bring him back to the camp. The Italians could never understand why the Indian villagers were completely loyal to the British even though they had been subjugated by them.

The prisoners in their memoirs noted that the Indian guards would march in orderly fashion even off duty while going for food or leisure. They were never lazy. Here’s what Poesio notes in his diary: “Our soldiers mock the Indians that they are on duty even if alone. Our enemies have managed to inculcate their discipline in the Indian soldiers, so we should understand what our enemy’s strength is.”

The prisoners were free to organise gatherings and discussions amongst themselves in the camp. The most discussed debates were those on modern politics. Doctor Scardoni spoke about modern corporate influences, Lieutenant Piolanti, for his part, addressed an original topic: the food conditions in Fascist controlled Europe. A brilliant conference held by Nino Nutrizio, commemorative of The Duke of Aosta, made the audience cry, but his lecture on Winston Churchill met the hostility of the most ardent fascists. Some of them signed a report in which they accused him of treason for having shown too much admiration towards the British statesman.

The patriotic spirit of the Italians did not fail, and they observed the “Giarabub Festival” a well-known event in Italy, with touching songs.

“Colonel, I do not want water, give me the fire-destroyer

with the blood of this heart my thirst will go out”

“Colonel I do not want bread, give me lead to my musket

I have   led in my bag that for today will be enough for me.

Colonel I do not want the change, here nobody comes back,

you do not give even a meter, if death will not pass.”

 

Death in the play really arrived, and the “Giarabub Festival” ended like this:

“Colonel I do not want praises, I died for my land,

but the end of England begins with Giarabub!”

The Italians worked to make wine and whisky for themselves as well as for the British.

Normally seven prisoners worked for a whole night to get a bottle of pure alcohol, which then was sold to the British. Giorgio Vuxani tell us that the British were not happy with the perfect transparency of the clear spirit, so we gave it colour leaving for a few days a piece of boot sole, rotten and decayed, to soak and the precious drink assumed the colour of the whiskey. The British were enthusiastic by (about) it!

Theatrical performances were often organized by some prisoners using makeshift costumes. It kept them alive and in tune with the culture of their country.  Almost every evening a film was projected, except if the weather conditions did make it impossible as they took place outdoors.

After their return some prisoners wrote in the Italian press:

Nowadays, whoever hears of war imprisonment thinks of the mistreatment of prisoners and the hostages of Islamic terrorists or to the cruel images of people locked up in detention camps in the former Yugoslavia from three decades ago.

Yet this conflict has also left us with some glimpses of humanity and loyal behaviour such as the surrender of the honours of weapons to a defeated brave enemy or the application of chivalrous behavioural codes which today, unfortunately we are losing memory of.

An example of captivity ‘on human scale’ comes to us from distant India where between 1941 and 1947 the British held on the slopes of the Himalayas a large group of Italian officers captured from various fronts of war.

One of the many British concentration camps in World War II was in Yol, Northern India, at the foot of the Himalayas, not far from Tibet. In that same camp, where hundreds of German prisoners had been locked up during the First World War, about ten thousand Italian Officers were deported (12,000 according to some sources) that ‘stayed’ there from 1941 and others from 1942 until their repatriation.

The British far from tender regarding prisoners (as many unfortunate survivors of internment in Kenya and South Africa have experienced) could afford the luxury of using their vast colonial holdings all over the world to organize concentration camps very far from the operational theatres, in such a way that their unfortunate guests’ ambitions and possibility of escape were reduced to almost zero.

The cemetery, on the other hand, was about ten kilometres away, in Dharmsala, a place much more comfortable than the one intended for the living. In five years, ninety-eight times that road was unfortunately crossed by funerals. The funeral details included: the procession was opened by an English Guard of honour in arms, a laurel wreath from the camp leader, the blank shots and the trumpeters played “Il Silenzio”.

Himalayan climbs and extraordinary treks

The prisoners at Yol were by far the lucky ones as they were granted the biggest prize that one would covet – that of freedom, to roam and climb various peaks in the nearby ranges. Starting from the Dhaula Dhar in their backyard, up to Lahaul and even borders of Zanskar. These climbs are well recorded in mountaineering history.

The prisoners who could leave the camp temporarily had to commit themselves to not escape and had to do it in writing. Here is what the bond looked like:

“I promise that in the period in which I am authorized to leave the camp, I shall not attempt to escape. I will not have any communication with individuals or components other camps or wings, either European or Indian. I will not do any trades, I will not enter any house or shop without prior authorization, I will not send any correspondence and I will not commit any hostile act towards the British Empire and its allies”.

The sight of the majestic Himalayan peaks was what strongly attracted some of the officers, especially those from the Alpine troops, who asked their jailers to give them leave to explore the surrounding mountains, so rich in majestic peaks. They obtained perhaps what can be considered unique in the history of the Second World War, permission to go out “on their word of honor” from the concentration camp to climb some peaks of Himachal Pradesh.

At first there were just a few and later more and more joined the groups to ask for permits to climb. They had great enthusiasm but faulty and primitive mountaineering equipment. They climbed Dhar Narwana (4690 m, slightly lower than Mont Blanc) in October 1943. After returning to the prison camp after the first ascent, a detailed report was given to the British authorities, while the protagonists’ story, in addition to the photographs and drawings, aroused enthusiasm in the other colleagues, and soon a further ascent was organized for Punta Lena (4807 m), renamed “Dhaula Cervino” for its resemblance to the original and on 23^rd November, a group numbed by the cold, planted a small Italian flag on the top.

The following spring Guarjunda (5287 m) was climbed, a beautiful peak, the highest of Dhaula Dhar, with views till Kashmir and Karakoram. It was climbed on 6^th June 1944 (on the same day, on the other side of the world, in Normandy, the Anglo-Americans landed and in Rome the first print of “Il tempo” was printed). This was achieved by a group of brave climbers equipped only with a rope and a nail.

After the Two Gun Peak (4570 m) (in Dhaula Dhar, near Indrahar pass), in June 1944, the mountaineering activity resumed in the spring of 1945. While the war in Europe was coming to an end, the prisoners in Yol climbed Kuja-ka-Tilla (5447 m) in May-June, Mulkila in June, that was the highest peak climbed (6517 m) in July, Cima Italia (6163) peak until then inviolate, Kailas of Chamba (5656 m) between June and October and Cima Otto (4981 m) in October 1945. In the same period, an extraordinary trekking expedition was carried out and in between September 6^th, and October 8^th, 1945, three officers (Gualtiero Bernardelli, Giovanni Battista Mazzolini and Luciano D’Avanzo) carried out a large-scale trek up to Lake Tso Moriri in the Little Tibet. 550 kilometers were walked in 27 days overcoming several hills between 4,000 and 6,000 meters of altitude, in an uncontaminated environment of wild beauty.

In 1946, although the world war was over since a year, they were still held in Yol, and in May a team managed to climb the Kundli Got (4581 m). These mountaineering missions are unbelievable if we take into account the poor equipment of the protagonists. The results obtained were certainly important: in addition to climbing peaks up to then inviolate, in precarious conditions, they also contributed abundantly towards interesting scientific outcomes such as topographic survey of mountains little known, the verification and updating of cartographic material, the observation of the phenomena of snow and glaciation, the collection of numerous panoramic sketches and news on the anthropic environment.

But beyond the mountaineering or scientific results, what appears particularly important is the transcendental motivation that encouraged those officers to want to leave the camps: irrepressible yearning for freedom, the will to maintain and activate their professionalism, a sense of attachment to values ​​of the mountain, in a word that “spirit of body” that does not fail even in difficult conditions thousands of kilometres away from the homeland.

The names of the three Europeans were given to them by another climber-prisoner, Giacinto Ferrero, who writes in his diary: “We met a Romanian Jew, Mundi Ettinger an Austrian from Vienna Kreneck, and a German, Gutman. Kreneck, a geography teacher in a school in a small Indian state, was a keen mountaineer, who came to India in 1939 with a German expedition to Lahaul. At the outbreak of war, he was interned and was unable to obtain freedom and to teach again, given his status as a Nazi. He gave us very useful information about the area and the interesting peaks, he also promised us to show us a photobook of Manali”.

In the evening it was football time, which the Italians loved the most. Most matches were held between Italian teams only, sometimes challenged by a British team. The local population never participated. After a long day and playing in the strong sun, the British security would blow a whistle and give orders to the prisoners to “Your Own Locations” directing them to proceed to their respective bunkers. Most Italians could not follow English so an Italian Officer would abbreviate the order with first three letters: “YOL, YOL, YOL”, with a whistle and the prisoners knew that the day was over. The officer was mocking their jailer, but at the same time creating a new fascinating name.

Release From Yol

By September 1945, the Second World War ended in Europe and technically the Italians were no longer prisoners in true sense of the word. But due to the distance and problems of transportation, their return to Italy was gradual. In between 1945 and the first half of 1946 only a couple of isolated prisoners were released. The bulk of the releases started at the end of June 1946: 90% of the release in the second half of 1946 and 10% was in 1947.

As the conflict over, Yol’s prisoners were granted a gradual freedom, and although it was within precise territorial borders, they could meet the locals, the villages and their inhabitants, visit monasteries and Buddhist monks, survey plants. It was a bitter freedom, conditioned by thoughts of returning home, which in fact, still seemed far away, linked to the interminable wait for a steamer. So, they began attempts to try to link to their motherland by other means. For example, someone worked on the details of arrears of salary accumulated in the years of imprisonment. And soldiers listed out what they would like to do with the accumulated money. Many thoughts of family and relations and what gifts they would take for each of them, as if they were normal tourists!

In the first months of 1947, trucks arrived for the last “guests”, who were first transported to the railway station of Nagrota: from there the journey continued by train to Bombay and then by steamer until Napoli.

But even after kissing the soil of the homeland the problems for the former prisoners did not cease abruptly and their reintegration into society was not a simple ‘war within’ them. The Italian flag was no longer the one for which they had fought, fascists no longer found fascism, the monarchists did not find monarchy, the antifascists and the antimonarchists found a system that they had not helped to build, the brothers no longer found the brothers devoured by the war (including the worst one the civil-war), the children no longer found the parents, fathers found children who they had not seen and from which they could hardly be recognized. There were also those who regretted Yol.

Later Visit

The first Italian journalist who in the post-war period visited Yol was Gino Tomajuoli, correspondent of the weekly “Il Tempo”, who wrote an interesting article in May 1949.

“India was now independent and had already started ’eternal war ‘with Pakistan for the possession of Kashmir, Gandhi was killed and since a month Italy had joined the Atlantic Alliance.” Tomajuoli had a permit to visit the camp for five minutes but with various subterfuges managed to stay for a whole day.

He saw the colossal work that Italian prisoners had to do to level up the mountain, a stony cliff to build a soccer field supported by an embankment of seven or eight meters high.

Only one camp, no. 28, was still in use, this time the prisoners were the enemies of the new India: Indian dissidents, communists, two British officers who were advisers of the Pakistani army, captured in Kashmir. The camp director, a Sikh captain, still remembered the Italians with benevolence and hoped for their return, of course as tourists. The chaperone remarked on the difference in the behaviour between the current guests, who did nothing and the Italians who “never gave up”, worked, studied and produced.

“Everywhere in India” – the captain told Tomajuoli – “one discovers a lively sympathy and a polite curiosity for Italy and the Italians. The Indians have been educated by the English for five generations, who instilled in them the conviction that Europe is constituted by a powerful, immense and industrious England. The Italian prisoners were the first one to generate doubts in the Indians, although absolutely involuntarily, they contributed to the slow liberation of India from English superiority”.

As a farewell, the Italian prisoners created an unusual monument which today stands at the YOL Cantonment. The narration under is as follows:

BORN TO BE FREE

The rather uncommon stone relic was made by the Italian prisoners housed in the YOL PSW camp from 1941 to 1945. That topmost pair of stones are symbolic of Man’s unsatiated thirst for freedom, depicted here as a pair of wings of a bird, struggling to free itself from captivity. The rest of the structure represents Prison walls.

This beautiful idea enshrines the tribute which this band of Italians, although captives, left behind, this emblem of the human spirit, for posterity, to uphold and emulate.

To this day it stands undisturbed by fellow soldiers, and spared even by the unforgiving fury, of both nature and time.

Two other monuments, one a large size worn out shoe, representing hard work, with the caption “I am a soldier and defending my Nation is my Dharma”. Little above is a vast beautifully constructed stone remembrance wall in Rajput style” Chhatri”, titled “Shraddha-Tara”, in memory of the gallant martyrs of the Rising Star Corps, who set to serve the Nation’s cause but did not return.” Both were renovated in 2015.

The Italian Prisoner of War camp in those days was located in wilderness with no village or landmark to give it a name. Ultimately, following the recall order post the war, the Italian prisoners returned home, but the village and the cantonment, is now known as, YOL!

The Italian prisoners have published some books (in Italian) about their prison experiences and displayed relevant pictures of their work and the monuments they built. It is not known if any of the soldiers ever returned to visit the area they helped name – YOL!

In a way, aren’t we all lovers of mountains, “Prisoners of Himalaya”, always thinking and dreaming to go to this great range and some of us manage to “escape” to the Himalaya, to return soon!

Note: Quotes from an Italian book, translated in English.

 Ten Thousand Italians forgotten in India

The fascist Republic of Himalaya 1941-1947

By Giovanni Marizza