In the period between the crisis of summer 1943 and Liberation, about 800,000 Italians (mostly men, but also a few thousand women) were transferred (almost all by force) to the territory of the Third Reich. There, their destinies crossed those of another 100,000 compatriots, who had been arriving in Germany since 1938 on the basis of intergovernmental agreements between Rome and Berlin, but who were now – after 25 July 1943 – held against their will by the National Socialist authorities. From May 1945 onwards, with the collapse of the Nazi regime and the end of the war in Europe,…
