IT is no secret that Tony Lamarra has a strong connection with the community. He was elected to Council for 21 consecutive years, for six of which he was the mayor of Goulburn, and in his time he has served on more than 60 boards and committees. He even received an OAM.
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If you asked him, he would tell you that a sense of community is the most important thing you can have and that you should always do what you can to help one another. However, what a lot of people may not be aware of is that his lifelong commitment to civics and strong beliefs derived from his traumatic childhood in war ravaged Italy.
Now, at the age of 75, he has produced a documentary about his experiences and the battle that almost cut short his life.
Mr Lamarra grew up in the village of S.Angelo, which neighboured the city of Cassino, and the Second World War was a big part of his young life. As war hit its final stages Italy became a very important piece of land. It was the passage way for Europe and its occupation would be crucial for either the Allies or Germans to claim victory.
As fighting in Africa wound up Germany reinforced its stronghold in Italy and Cassino soon became a battle ground. At the age of just seven, Mr Lamarra and his family became refugees.
“It all started one morning in 1943 when we heard on the radio that Italy had surrendered to the Allied forces, at that time they were fighting in Africa, and we were so happy to think the war was over,” he recalled.
“But, within a couple of days, the Germans had bought down tanks and trucks and soldiers into our village and the first thing they did was go from house to house and told the people there to get out.”
Once the people were out of their homes, the German forces seized the high ground of Monte Cassino, a mountain that overlooked the area, and began a bombing campaign to destroy the village. Their plan was to ensure the Allies had nowhere to take cover when they entered the region, but in essence what they really did was obliterated every worldly possession the displaced people owned.
With no real place to go, Mr Lamarra’s family sought refuge in a nearby village.
“We moved around quite a lot...each time we moved we would have to take refuge with somebody and whenever you would take refuge the people would give you whatever they had,” he said.
“I remember quite well we took refuge in this village house in the paddock and the lady who owned it said to us, ‘look we haven’t got much but if you want to sleep here you can sleep under the bed’. So, the seven of us slept under the bed and we were there for quite some time.”
In January of 1944, Mr Lamarra and his family found themselves in the crossfire of one of the worst conflicts of the six year war, the battle for Monte Cassino. Two hundred and seventy five thousand soldiers and more than 400 innocent civilians lost their lives during the battle and as he recalls now, he is lucky to be alive after being shot at, bombed and almost executed by a deranged German soldier.
One of the worst elements of the conflict, and the main one that he has chosen to focus on for the film, was a bombing campaign which saw 750 bombers drop 1500 tons of explosives in six hours, destroying the Monte Cassino catholic monastery, which had become home to many refugees.
“Before they started they sent a leaflet up telling the people to leave because they were going to blow up the monastery but the monastery was 9km down to the town which was already being destroyed so they couldn’t leave anyway and they had no transportation,” Mr Lamarra said.
“In the meantime, a German officer told the Bishop that they couldn’t leave during the day time because it wasn’t safe and they could get killed.
So he said, ‘You have to get out between midnight and 6 o’clock in the morning’.
But that was impossible because there was no transportation … within a short amount of time the bombs started coming.”
The film intercuts historical footage from a number of different sources, juxtaposing footage of the bombs being dropped with real life footage from inside the holy building as it was bombarded with explosives.
“What I was trying to show was the bombers coming in and the people in the monastery underneath… to really bring home what was happening,” he said. Amazingly, nobody died in the attack.
Another point Mr Lamarra made in his film was to look at the destruction of the village to illustrate the plight of the people left behind after the battle.
“Many times you see (movies where) people are fighting the war, whether it is the Americans or the English, and they say ‘oh, look at this we beat the hell out of the people but they don’t understand the suffering of the people who live in this village and the suffering of when they go back to the village because the village – there is nothing there – and you have to start from scratch to rebuild and after the war you don’t have anything, all you can see are little pieces of tin and you put them together to build a shed for you to get going again,” he said.
The bombing campaign permanently damaged Mr Lamarra’s hearing and he still has nightmares about some of the things he saw. Today, the city of Cassino holds ten days of memorials, honouring all of the people who lost their lives during the battle.
It also has become a place for soldiers, who fought on opposite sides to come together in an attempt to heal. The film was produced for the mayor of Cassino to show to the city’s young and Mr Lamarra’s greatest hope is that they learn from the mistakes of the past and never have to experience the things he did.
“(War) is always a conflict between two people but at the end of the day there are no winners,” he said.
“There is a better way to solve problems. When you talk you can solve problems.”
The film also includes an epilogue about Mr Lamarra’s journey to Australia at age 18, his life time of achievements and his various trips back to his homeland.
