Just as American Italians, Germans, and Japanese were interred during WWII in the US, likewise British Italians and Germans were interred in Britain, and in some cases transported across the Atlantic to the US. One of those Ships "The Arandora Star, was sunk and 450 Italians were drowned, among them dedicated Anti- Fascists, particularly Decio Anzani who  was merely a Tailor, though an intellect, and effective anti- fascist activist,

Of the 1,600 men on board the Arandora Star, around 800 lost their lives Photo: GETTY
By Nick Squires in Rome   Nov 21 2010 

The Arandora Star sailed from Liverpool on 30 June 1940, bound for Canada with hundreds of German and Italian "enemy aliens" on board, but it was sunk by a German U-boat off the Irish coast within days of starting out. 

Of the 1,600 men on board, around 800 lost their lives, including more than 450 Italian internees who had been living in Britain and were rounded up as a potential Fifth Column security threat. 

The ship was sunk by a German submarine .....The incident, which is little known in Italy but is commemorated each year by Italians living in Britain, forms the basis for a new play which will have its first performance next month. 

The play, " The Tailor at the Bottom of the Sea" , has been written by Alfio Bernabei, an Italian playwright and novelist who has lived in Britain for the last 40 years. 

It revolves around an encounter between a fictional British commandant of an internment camp on the Isle of Man and a real-life character, an Italian anti-fascist campaigner called Decio Anzani. He was interned and sent to Canada aboard the Arandora Star despite having been a fierce opponent of Mussolini's fascists. 

He worked as a tailor in Soho but was also a political activist and intellectual who was friends with George Orwell and Sylvia Pankhurst, the suffragette. He was among the hundreds of Italian and German internees  who died when the ship was hit by a U-boat torpedo and sank in less than 20 minutes. 

"The sinking is still very much remembered among the Italian community in Britain but in Italy it is virtually unknown," Mr Bernabei told The Daily Telegraph. 

"It was hugely embarrassing to [Britain because these loyal Italian-Brits were being  unfairly and unnecessarily transported across a submarine filled ocean to certain death]. The death of Anzani was particularly tragic because he had been a staunch anti-fascist campaigner since the early 1920s, when Mussolini came to power." 

The play will be staged in the town of Jesi, in the Marche region of central Italy, on Dec 4, after which Mr Bernabei hopes to bring it to London. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/
europe/italy/8149883/Italian-wartime-tragedy-
turned-into-play.html
 

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