2 Lire Carpi - n.73

Campo di Concentramento P.G. 73 was located at Fossoli, near Carpi in the Emilia-Romagna region. The camp issued its own scrip denominations to restrict prisoner purchasing power to the camp canteen and prevent real currency from circulating among the internees — standard Italian P.O.W. practice under the Regio Esercito. What distinguishes Fossoli from most Italian camp issues is its later history: after the Italian armistice in September 1943, the Germans took over the site and converted it into a transit camp for Jewish deportees bound for Auschwitz and other extermination camps.

Scrip issued under the earlier Italian administration predates that chapter entirely, but the two phases of the same physical site are rarely noted together.