Historical Notes

There is a claim by Bridget Hitler, the wife of Alois, Adolf Hitler’s half-brother, that young Adolf visited the couple as a young man in their home in Liverpool, Britain, arriving in November, 1912 and staying until April, 1913. Unfortunately there are no other accounts of his visit and experts are divided as to the veracity of Bridget Hitler’s memoir. Mike Royden has an excellent account of the claim and other related material on his web site:
http://www.btinternet.com/~m.royden/mrlhp/local/hitlerinliverpool/hitlerinliverpool.htm

Many of the bodies of the Arandora Star victims washed up in subsequent weeks and months on the north-west shores of Ireland. An excellent amateur four-part series outlining the tragedy as it relates to Ireland can be found on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeuZ6ft6pYw

In May 1940 the Huyton Alien Internment Camp in Liverpool admitted its first internees. Liverpool was targeted as the temporary destination for many aliens and internees during WWII for its convenience as an embarkation port to the Isle of Man, Canada, and Australia. The camp was situated on the site of the recently built Liverpool Corporation Woolfall Heath Housing Estate. In 2004 the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool mounted an exhibition of works produced by artists during the time they were housed in the camp. Two of the artists whose work appeared were Hugo Dachinger and Walter Nessler. Art Behind Barbed Wire, by Jessica Feather is the catalogue to the exhibition and contains much fascinating information about the camp.

The direct hit on the large underground shelter in Durning Road, Edge Hill, was the worst single incident in the Liverpool air raids during the Blitz of WWII as regards loss of life. This occurred in the early hours of November 29, 1940. About 300 people were tightly packed into ashelter in the basement of Edge Hill Training College in Durning Road. When a parachute mine hit the building, it collapsed into the shelter below, crushing many of its occupants. Boiling water from the central heating system and gas from fractured mains poured in. Raging fires overhead also made rescue work extremely dangerous. In all, 166 men, women and children were killed. Many more werebadly injured. See National Museums Liverpool web site:
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/exhibitions/blitz/blitz.asp

Within hours of Mussolini’s declaration of war against Britain and her allies on June 10, 1940, Winston Churchill issued the command to arrest and intern all Italian males living in Britain. He is reputed to have said, in his inimitable style, “Collar the lot!” Almost all the men and boys taken into custody were later taken aboard the ships Arandora Star and Ettrick to be taken to Canada. The ships were not marked by the conventional use of a red cross to warn enemy vessels that the passengers were civilians. The following downloadable PDF lists names of victims of the Arandora Star tragedy.