Bagnoli - Bagnoli Displaced Persons Camp

Bagnoli Displaced Persons Camp

Between 1946 and 1951 Bagnoli was the site of a Displaced Persons camp run by the International Refugee Organization. The complex occupied by the camp was originally built to provide a home for young people in need by the Bank of Naples Foundation on the occasion of the four hundredth anniversary of its foundation. The facility, "Collegio Costanzo Ciano", was a novelty in the field of social architecture in that it responded to the need to "ensure intellectual and political education, physical training and gymnastics". It contained schools, dormitories, infirmaries, workshops, sports building, a church and the theater, all set in a pleasant landscape setting.

The project, designed by Francesco Silvestri, was divided into a series of terraces facing south which required substantial earthworks. The area chosen extended about 320 thousand square meters and was located between the district of Bagnoli, the slopes of the adjoining hills and the boundaries of site of the Triennial Exhibition of Overseas Italian Territories (Italian: Triennale d'Oltremare) at Fuorigrotta. The complex was designed to house approximately 2500 students of both sexes.

The work lasted a little over a year and was completed in April 1940 to coincide with the completion of the exhibition. On May 9, 1940 Victor Emmanuel III officially opened the College and the Triennial Exhibition.

The facility was occupied by the Italian War Ministry until 1942 when it was turned over to Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, the youth movement of the Italian Fascist Party, later, to the Germans for an Officer Candidate School until 1943.

In 1944 it became an Italian orphanage. In mid-February 1944, the 765th US Squadron occupied the site.

After World War II, it was used as a Displaced Persons camp, housing between 8,000 to 10,000 refugees, mainly from Eastern Europe, who were being processed for immigration to various countries including Argentina, Australia, Canada, and the USA. At one time there were complaints about disease and children dying.

An appalling atrocity by the Western Allies was knowingly committed at the refugee camp after World War II as part of "Operation Keelhaul" which was the last forced repatriation from Bagnoli as well as other refugee camps at Aversa, Pisa, and Riccione, of about one thousand displaced people who were categorized correctly, or incorrectly, as ex-Soviet citizens. Their ultimate fate was execution or imprisonment in the Gulag of Soviet Russia.

Relocation of Allied Forces Southern Europe (AFSOUTH) to the area previously occupied by the camp at Bagnoli started in January 1953, and the new complex was formally activated on 4 April 1954, the day of the 5th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty.