Richard Demarco calls for Edinburgh memorial to Arandora Star victims

Arts legend Richard Demarco in call for city to mark 1940 tragedy

Richard Demarco has called for the erection of a permanent memorial in Edinburgh to the victims of the Arandora Star tragedy.

One of Scotland’s leading lights in the arts world has called for a permanent memorial to be erected in Edinburgh to the victims of the Arandora Star tragedy.

Traverse Theatre co-founder Richard Demarco, CBE, says it is “a disgrace” that the July 2, 1940 event, which left thousands of Italian families bereaved and disproportionately affected the Scottish capital, is being overlooked in his home city.

Precisely 805 mostly Italian and German internees and prisoners of war lost their lives when the Canada-bound transport ship they were sailing in was sunk in controversial circumstances by a torpedo from a German U-boat. A quarter of the 100 Scots-Italians who lost their lives were from Edinburgh.

Thursday marked the 80th anniversary of the horrifying tragedy, with a Requiem Mass, streamed live due to Covid-19 restrictions, taking place at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow for the victims.

But despite Edinburgh and Leith’s large Italian communities no mass was held this year at either St Mary’s RC in Broughton Street or at St Mary’s Star of the Sea in Constitution Street. Both Catholic churches have marked past anniversaries.

Raising fears that the tragic event is in danger of being forgotten, Richard Demarco, 89, whose family originally comes from near Picinisco in southern Italy, believes it is time funds were made available for a permanent memorial to the Arandora Star victims in the Capital.

Mr Demarco said: “This is all happened as a result of Churchill’s stupid cabinet decision to treat so many law-abiding British citizens, who happened to be Italian, in such a way that there lives would be endangered. And yet there has never been an official government apology.

“There should be a monument somewhere. Few places suffered more than here in Edinburgh. This city suffered disproportionately and it should acknowledge that fact.

“No one appears to be noticing it (the anniversary). It is passing by as if it never happened. This is a disgrace.”

A memorial garden to the Scots-Italians victims of the Arandora Star tragedy was unveiled in 2011 at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow, but there is nothing similar as yet in the Capital.

Among the large number of bereaved in Edinburgh was Eduardo Paolozzi. Interned at Saughton at the time for alleged links to fascism, Paolozzi lost his father and uncle to the sinking.

Mr Demarco added: “The most important artist in Scotland, The Queen’s Sculptor in Ordinary, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, suffered the lost of his father and his uncle. That is something that nobody in Edinburgh should ever forget.

“I think there should be a monument to all the Italians who died. This touched every single Italian family in Edinburgh and there were people crying for years and years after this tragedy, mourning their sons, their fathers, their uncles, their grandfathers.

“I’d like to think that before I die, I will stand to witness the erection of a monument. It is part of the story that every child in Edinburgh should know about.”

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