Italian immigrant's fascist link

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• Introduction
  

• Paul Robeson
  

• Nicholas of Glais
  

• Marco Berni
  

• Detainment camp in Rhyl
  

Marco Berni was born in Italy at the turn of the last century and emigrated with his family in 1921.

The family settled in Ebbw Vale, and within the next few years Marco Berni's father registered his three sons on the list of the "Fascio di Cardiff."

According to the MI5 files, he also paid his sons' subscription fees.

Berni kept his membership at the Cardiff branch of the Italian fascist party, even after moving to Exeter, and finally to Plymouth in the mid-1930s.

By the outbreak of the Second World War, it seems that the only remaining link with Cardiff, was the fact that his aunt, known only in the file as "Mrs Carpanini" ran the Continental Café in Queen Street.

Although this café has now disappeared, it was located next door to the old Capital Cinema - on the current site of Cardiff's Capital Shopping Centre.

After being arrested in 1941, because of suspicions that he sympathised with the cause of fascism, Marco Berni was interred until 1943.

The file also reveals that even as late as the 1950s, MI5 continued to block his application for British citizenship - over 30 years after he first arrived in Wales, and despite the fact that most of his immediate family had received this recognition many years before.

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