{"id":2823,"date":"2024-05-09T10:44:39","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T08:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/?p=2823"},"modified":"2024-05-09T10:50:02","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T08:50:02","slug":"launch-of-the-book-the-prisoners-of-jan-smuts-by-karen-horn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/it\/news\/dal_consolato\/2024\/05\/launch-of-the-book-the-prisoners-of-jan-smuts-by-karen-horn\/","title":{"rendered":"Launch of the book “The Prisoners of Jan Smuts” by Karen Horn"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Consulate General of Italy in Johannesburg, <\/span>in collaboration with Societa’ Dante Alighieri Johannesburg<\/span><\/a>, Comites Johannesburg<\/span><\/a> and Jonathan Ball Publishers<\/span><\/a> presents the launch of the book “The Prisoners of Jan Smuts” by Karen Horn<\/strong>.<\/div>\n
The book recounts the stories of survival and shenanigans of the Italian POWs in the Union through the eyes of five prisoners who had documented their experiences in memoirs and letters.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Prof. Anita Virga will present the author and moderate the discussion.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The book will be available for purchase.<\/div>\n
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Date: May 10, 2024<\/strong><\/div>\n
Time: 18:00 for 18:30<\/strong><\/div>\n
Venue: Societa’ Dante Alighieri Johannesburg<\/span><\/a>, 62A Houghton Drive, Houghton, Johannesburg<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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RSVP to johannesburg.segr@esteri.it<\/div>\n
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Description<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Equally skilled in different trades than in the art of love, the Italian prisoners-of-war (POWs) who were incarcerated in South Africa during the Second World War are a source of great fascination to this day. The first Italian POWs arrived in the Union of South Africa in early 1941, most of them being held in Zonderwater Camp outside Cullinan or in work camps across the country. The government of Jan Smuts saw them as a source of cheap labour that would contribute to harvesting schemes, road-building projects such as the old Du Toit\u2019s Kloof Pass between Paarl and Worcester and even to prickly-pear eradication schemes. Prisoners of Jan Smuts recounts the stories of survival and shenanigans of the Italian POWs in the Union through the eyes of five prisoners who had documented their experiences in memoirs and letters. While many POWs seemed to appreciate the opportunities to gain new skills, others clung to the Fascist ideas they had grown up with and refused to work. Many opted to remain in South Africa once the war had ended, forging quite a legacy. These included sculptor Edoardo Villa, who left an important mark in the local and international art world, and businessman Aurelio Gatti, who built an ice-cream empire whose gelato was to delight generations of South Africans.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Consulate General of Italy in Johannesburg, in collaboration with Societa’ Dante Alighieri Johannesburg, Comites Johannesburg and Jonathan Ball Publishers presents the launch of the book “The Prisoners of Jan Smuts” by Karen Horn. The book recounts the stories of survival and shenanigans of the Italian POWs in the Union through the eyes of five […]","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-2823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-diplomazia-culturale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2823"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2830,"href":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions\/2830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consjohannesburg.esteri.it\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}