From Italy’s Largest Refugee Camp to a University Director in Rome

Darius von Güttner Sporzyński, a university academic director in Rome, has shared his personal history of fleeing Poland for the Roberto Rossi Longhi Refugee Camp in Latina, Italy.

The Latina camp served as a transition point for approximately 100,000 people, mostly from Eastern Europe, who sought refuge from the Soviet Bloc over a 22-year period. Sporzyński arrived at the camp as a teenager before eventually relocating to Australia. He told Vatican News that his family's escape from Poland was a journey they could never repeat, noting that his parents told the children they were traveling for a holiday to mask the reality of their flight from communism and state controls following the Second World War.