Model house made by Italian prisoner of war Adolfo Allaria for the Kurrle family

Two storey model Italianate style house with elaborate decoration, a small garden, open windows and doors, and interior furnishing details, made from a composition material - possibly plaster and sawdust. Mounted on a wooden base. A small plaque on the front of the roof reads '7134 P of W' and an illegible placename.

Model house made by Italian prisoner of war (POW) 7134 Aldolfo Allaria for Lynette (born 1940) and Frank (born 1939) Kurrle, the son and daughter of Edith and Jack Kurrle of Korumburra, Victoria. Jack Kurrle owned and ran a 300 acre dairy and pig farm situated approximately three kilometres from Korumburra. The Kurrles took advantage of the availability of Italian POWs as farm day workers and used a number on their farm in the last 2 years of the Second World War.

One such prisoner was Adolfo Allaria, a ship's pastrycook in civilian life, who made this small elaborate model house from plaster and composition and presented it on 8 February 1944 to Lynette and Frank as a keepsake of his time with the family. See REL35288.002 for the letter he wrote to the children when he gave them the house.

Allaria, born at Geneva in 1904 and a resident of Genova. Before the war he worked as a pastrycook aboard ships, including the 'Conte Biancamano' in the 1920s and 1930s, travelling bewtween Italy and New York. With the entry of Italy into the war on the side of the Germans in June 1940, the merchantman, 'Romolo', that Allaria was working on tried to escape Australia by heading north. It was intercepted by HMAS 'Manoora' on 12 June near the Solomons. 'Romolo's crew scuttled the ship and were picked up by 'Manoora', which then sent a round into the merchantman and sunk it.

Assigned number PWIM7134, Allaria was initially interned at Gaythorne, but was moved to Hay Camp, Victoria on 6 November 1940. He spent the remainder of the war in Victorian and South Australian POW/internee camps, specifically at Loveday, Leongatha and Wangaratta. He was repatriated to Italy aboard the Moreton Bay on 14 December 1946.

After the war he returned to working aboard ships as a patsrycook, including between Italy and New York aboard the ship 'Saturnia' in the mid 1950s.

• Letter from Italian prisoner of war Adolfo Allaria presenting a model house to the Kurrle children