Advisory board and collaborators

Elisa Longarato, who lives in Montebello Vicentino, near Vicenza, Italy, started to go through her father’s WWII captivity letters, journals, and memorabilia in 2010, thus discovering that he had been detained as a POW in Zonderwater, South Africa, for more than six years. Since her father Vittorio never talked about his war captivity, in 2011, she traveled to South Africa to visit the Zonderwater camp museum, cemetery, and chapel. Once she returned to Italy, she decided to create a website documenting the Italian POW experience in South Africa with the records that she could through archives and descendants who, like her, wanted to discover more about their relatives’ captivity. Since 2011, she has made available an incredible amount of data and connected with thousands of Italian POWs’ descendants all over the world. http://www.zonderwater.com/en/

Joanne Tapiolas is an independent researcher, history teacher and high school Deputy Principal, a family historian and business owner. The granddaughter of Catalan (Spanish) and Veneto (Italian) migrants, she has an intimate understanding of displacement, prejudice and living in an unfamiliar world. Her passion for family history and insight into social history has inspired Australians and Italians from around the world, to become part of her projects and share their stories. Her collaboration with independent researchers, authors, journalists and organizations in Australia and Italy has further promoted the history of Italian prisoners of war and internees in Australia during WW2. She is the author of Walking in their Boots, Footprints of Italian Prisoners of War in Queensland WW2 (2017) and the creator of the websites: italianprisonersofwar.com (2018 -); theduneraitalians.com (2025-).