For an interesting and educational day out visit the National Wool Museum where
currently exhibiting is a story of how 53 Welsh-Italians lost their lives
during World War Two while the ship they were travelling on from Liverpool
to Canada was sunk by a German U-boat.
The SS Arandora Star was taking internees, many of whom were rounded up just
because of their Italian descent and were taken by order of the British
Government in 1940 to internment camps in Canada. This exhibition, entitled
Wales Breaks its Silence ...from Memories to Memorial, was created by the
Arandora Star Memorial Fund in Wales and commemorates this story within a
small exhibition of mounted photographs, personal accounts of survivors and
newspaper articles and includes a large model of the SS Arandora Star. A
memorial has been placed in the Metropolitan Cathedral of St David Cardiff,
naming the 53 who perished.
With numerous Welsh-Italians settled in the Newcastle Emlyn and Llandysul
area, as well as other pockets in Wales, this exhibition may strike a chord
with many local Italian descendent, their families and friends. Many have
settled in this particular area because of the Prisoners of War Camp at
Henllan.
The exhibition is free of charge and the Museum open from 10am to 5pm daily
over the summer.
George Hill from the Arandora Star Memorial Fund in Wales said: “The
committee set out to honour all those who died on that fatal day of July 2nd
1940 on the Arandora Star. This travelling exhibition has been developed to
give insight to what happened and raise awareness of this tragedy.”
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