Domenico Iannotta

Story

My father, Domenico Iannotta was born on the 4th of August 1914, in Sant’Agata Dei Goti, a picturesque village in the Campania region of Italy.

My father\’s parents owned a small olive grove and farming land which contributed to the sustenance of their family of ten. Life on the land was harsh and extremely strenuous without any machinery and other equipment to till the ground or means of transporting yields from the land to the store. Everything was done by way of backbreaking and gruelling physical exertion. He was expected to work alongside his brothers before and after school without any recompense or holiday.

My father, like many other male children of that era, could attend school up to year five. Females, many of whom were illiterate, had to be domesticated and prepare for a life with a prearranged marriage partner. Families living in a village community knew each other very well and there were many arranged marriages, however my parents fell in love and married .

Manifestos hailing Hitler and Mussolini as allies were posted on every prominent street corner, on buildings and lamp posts. When it was announced that any young man willing to volunteer to fight for their country in the impending African campaign of WW2, should immediately attend the army headquarters where they would be briefed and transported to Rome for training. My father was one of those volunteer Fascist soldiers.

So leaving his young pregnant wife and a two-year-old son, my father set off on a journey that was to last for seven long years; after which I met him for the first time in my life.

As time went on, I began to attend Kindergarten. I realised then how widespread the misery and poverty was among our village community. Although the wealthy people of the district lived quite comfortably.

My mother had not received any communication from my father throughout the war, until she was notified by the war ministry that my father’s division had been captured by the Australian troops in Tripoli 1941. They were first taken to Egypt where they remained for about six months then they were shipped to Australia via the Queen Mary. The POWs were transported to a Camp in Hay, New South Wales and later many were sent to the Loveday Camp, near Barmera, South Australia.

During his years as a POW, my father as well as other POWs were asked to work on farms as there was a shortage of male labour due to the war. My father was sent to work on a farm at Foreston in the Adelaide Hills. The farmer was very prejudiced and treated my father with disrespect. He had to sleep and eat in a shed. Eventually my father pretended to be ill and was accused of being a malingerer so he was sent back to a camp prison cell for 28 days. He was asked again to work for another farmer who was not prejudiced and displayed much compassion.

It was that family who later sponsored us to Australia.

We boarded the ship Sebastiano Caboto in July 1949 in the Bay of Naples. The departure was quite uneventful, with no tearful bystanders waving handkerchiefs or tossing streamers. Just a lot of very hopeful migrants undertaking a trip that would change their lives. Before long people began to hold their handkerchiefs over their mouths – sea-sickness would soon overtake us all. Especially when people disembarked at various ports and returned with food items- the smell permeated throughout the below-deck dormitory. The trip lasted for almost a month.

My father was very optimistic so his impressions of Australia had already been entrenched as a POW, whereas my mother found it very difficult at first, until she was able to obtain work as a weaver in the Onkaparinga Woollen Mills. There she made many new friends and met other migrants who also had stories to tell.

We soon settled down with the family who had sponsored us. My father worked hard from dawn to dusk, milking cows, preparing the soil for crops with the aid of two enormous draught horses. He also assisted at sheep shearing time and performed many other tasks associated with farming.

My parents owed for the passage to Australia so they were given the chance to grow produce and sell it to repay the debt – I also helped as a ten year old, picking peas and potatoes, weeding and sorting onions by moonlight.

A few years of intensive work and saving as much money as possible my parents realised their dream of opening their own grocery store where I also worked. They had become Australian citizens and felt as though they belonged and shared in similar privileges. They had embraced this wonderful country’s opportunities, democratic lifestyle and its respect for multiculturalism.

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