Italian Heritage

John Lincoln's series on the history of Cullinan continues. This article looks at the village and surrounding area during World War II. Click here to view the series index.

In 1932 the mine closed for a second time and the village became a virtual ghost town. That was until 1939, when the military arrived. It was probably the vacant houses and the abundance of open veldt in which to practice manoeuvres that led the military to decide to select the Village and surrounding area to construct a massive camp.

The village was also connected to the railway network. The decision to construct the Italian POW camp at nearby Sonderwater (now Zonderwater) was probably influenced by its location well inland, as well as the close proximity of the SA Armed Forces.

The regiments of the forces decided to construct emblems of their military regiments on a koppie in the village. The two bagges visible in the above photograph are the “Regiment de la Rey” and the “Witwatersrand Rifles”. Other badges are “The Second Royal Durban Light Infantry”, the “Pretoria Regiment (Princess Alice’s Own)” and the “Central Army Training Depot” (John Lincoln)

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Born in Palermo on 1st October 1910, Giuseppe Maniscalco was one of a large family of 8 children. After the sudden death of his father, his mother was unable to support the children alone and therefore decided to leave Palermo and travelled to family and friends in Trapani. With the consent of Giuseppe's mother, the children were split up and were adopted by other friends and relatives.

Giuseppe decided he would like to live with his uncle, Rizzuto Noncencio, who had a farm near Casablanca, in Morocco. His uncle traded in mules and horses, introducing stallions from the Abda and Chianda areas of Morocco, to improve the strain of Sicilian horses. All went well with Giuseppe until one day he had a traumatising experience involving the foreman, Mr. Poleo, who was unsuccessfully herding some animals into an enclosure. Frustrated, he told Giuseppe to stand at the main gate, waving his arms while he herded them in from behind. The animals stampeded towards him and he took fright and ran away. He hid in the bush and was rescued by 2 Arabs on camels who took him to their village. He spent a week with them, not understanding anything they said.

As no one had come to try and find him from his uncle's farm, he decided to run away again and made his way to the farm of Mr Pietro Mazzara, a Sicilian who had been farming in Morocco for many years. This family adopted Giuseppe and soon he was...

In the small village of Issiglio, in the Canavese district, lying between the beautiful valley of Chiusella and the main town of that region, Ivrea, Piemonte, on the 6 September 1857 Guglielmo Martinaglia was born. After completing his military training with the Brigata Alpina, he, like so many Italians during those hard and difficult times, chose to seek his fortune in foreign lands.

Guglielmo Martinaglia and wife Maria Magdalena du Plooy

In 1877 he arrived by sea on the island of Reunion, in the Indian Ocean, where he joined the specialized engineering team from Piemonte, who, together with 4000 other foreign workers of different nationalities, were building the island’s first railway line (1877-1882). The Piemontese were given the task of building the railway line at La Montagne, by constructing a tunnel through the mountain and building large stone railway bridges, which were extremely successful and to the liking of the English chief engineer.

The dynamiting of the tunnels through the mountain at La Montagne did not go without incidents. Five Italians were killed by an explosion and lie buried on the island.

From Reunion, Guglielmo Martinaglia ventured further and in 1879 landed in Durban, Natal, the main seaport on the Eastern Coast of South Africa which was at this stage British controlled Natal, now the province of Kwa Zulu-Natal. At the time...