Tens of thousands of prisoners of war captured by Australian and Allied troops during WW2 were shipped to Australia. For Pietro Verazzi, his brief time in a prison camp in rural Western Australia sparked a remarkable connection with the land that continues eighty years later.
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00:00The Varazzi family has been working this farm near Mount Barker for generations.
00:08But how Italian-born Pietro Varazzi came to live in Western Australia is a story rarely told.
00:14He didn't like to talk about it too much because I think he felt that having been an Australian prisoner of war
00:22and now living in Australia, he wanted to not see Australia as that.
00:26The young Navy Corporal was captured in Tobruk in 1942.
00:30After ten months in a prison camp, he was sent to Australia.
00:34Pieter, as he came to be known, was moved to various jobs and even helped build the Perth Rail Line.
00:40He was one of thousands who passed through the Marinup No. 16 Prisoner of War Camp, 100km south of Perth.
00:48They were well looked after, well fed, camp life was easy, it was strict, there was a lot of security,
00:54there were guard checks, there were barbed wire fences, lighting around the perimeters.
00:58It was a hub for prisoners sent to rural areas.
01:01From Marinup, Pietro was first sent to work on a farm near Williams and later Mount Barker.
01:07Here he worked with the Mills family, in the dairy, on the apple orchard and building this cottage,
01:12where his name is still etched in the wall today.
01:15In Mount Barker, Pietro grew close to the Mills family.
01:18They were looked after like part of the family, so they just had all their meals with them.
01:22The friendship continued after the war and Pietro returned to Australia to work on the same farm.
01:27As the years went by, he bought land from the Mills family.
01:31159 acres, 3 roads and 38 perches.
01:35It was on that farm that Laurie grew up and later he and Anita raised their children, with a grandchild now on the block.
01:42Little baby Carter.
01:44Yeah, so Carter's just turned one.
01:47Pretty good. Makes me feel a bit emotional that he can be a part of all this and it's the next generation on.
01:5780 years later, raising the next generation on Pietro's farm holds meaning for them all.