Alfonso Pacitti

This Hansard extract mentions members of my family. I am afraid that this intervention in Parliament had little, if any effect, on the situation.

• HANSARD 25 January 1944: Lords Sitting
  
• REGULATION 18B
  THE DUKE OF BEDFORD had the following Notice on the Paper: To call attention to the continued detention under Defence Regulation 18B of persons arrested in May 1940, or later, and to the unconstitutional nature of such imprisonment without charge or trial and the unnecessary hardship of the conditions of detention; and to move for Papers.
  
  The noble Duke said:
  
  My Lords, I desire to call attention to the continued detention under Defence Regulation 18B of persons arrested in May 1940, or later, to the unnecessary hardship of the conditions of detention, and the unconstitutional nature of such imprisonment without charge or trial. Persons detained under Regulation 18B may perhaps be divided into two categories—those who are of hostile origin and those whom the Home Secretary says he thinks are likely to commit acts prejudicial to the safety of the realm. It is obvious that during war the Government have to impose some abnormal measures of control over persons of hostile origin, but that is no excuse for some of the things which have been done in the case of this class of political prisoner.
  
  There was, for example, no excuse for sending a large number of these unfortunates abroad in the ship "Dunera" under conditions which recall the worst conditions which are said to exist in enemy concentration camps. It would also seem that in deciding on the subsequent release of these persons, in some cases at any rate the Home Secretary has put a number of names into a hat and taken out the first which came to hand. In the case of persons of Italian origin some who were released were definitely interested in political Fascism. I do not mean for a moment to suggest that they harboured any traitorous designs against this country for that reason, but there is no getting away from the fact that they were actively interested in political Fascism. On the other hand there are others known to me who have never been interested in political Fascism and yet are still detained. I have in mind in particular two Italian families of the name of Pacitti and Bertolini, who are resident in Glasgow. The senior members of these families came to Scotland in their early youth and they and their children, except for their appearance, would not be distinguished from ordinary Scottish people. The fathers of the two families were both definitely Anti-Fascists, but they were packed off abroad in the "Arandora Star" and both were drowned when the ship was torpedoed.
  
  The sons had belonged to an organisation called the "Friends of Italy." This organisation had for its honorary president Sir Harry Brittain who, I believe, has not been interned. Although it had the approval of the Fascist Government of Italy, it was not primarily a Fascist organisation, but rather a social and compatriot organisation for promoting good understanding between the two countries. The two young men, when they joined it, had not the slightest idea that they were doing anything which would ever be regarded as disloyal, but they are still interned in the Isle of Man. Some time ago Mrs. Pacitti went over there to visit her son and her friends, and, walking long distances from camp to camp, overtaxed her strength and has since become dangerously ill. Pacitti was recently brought before the Advisory Committee and asked whether, if he were released, he would agree to join the Army and go to Italy. He replied that in the early days of the war he would have been quite prepared to defend the country, but since his father's death his whole attitude had become profoundly changed and he could not take part in war in any shape or form. I say that to make a suggestion of that kind to a man in Pacitti's position is to add insult to injury.
  
  HL Deb 25 January 1944 vol 130 cc487-516 487
  
  This is one of the very few mentions of the Arandora Star in Hansard over the last 75 years.