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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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My Italian Grandparents in WW2

by serkmerhaba

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Archive List > World > Italy

Contributed by 
serkmerhaba
People in story: 
Raimondo Brigo and Claudia Brigo
Location of story: 
Grandad (Albania and Germany) Grandma (Italy)
Article ID: 
A3295910
Contributed on: 
18 November 2004

My grandad entered the world war in 1941 at the age of 19. Being an Italian citizen he entered the Italian Cavalry. He did not really want to fight in the war but he had to. At first he was in Albania for about a year. Though the Italians then turned on the Germans but the Germans took over the Italians. So my grandad was taken to Germany to work in the concentration camp. He was given very little food, usually just a piece of bread and some soup broth but I'm not 100% sure about that.In the camp he had to do all different jobs. First he worked in the fields for 6 months. Then a had a few smaller jobs for a while, but his main job was working in the mines. He worked in the mines for over a year. He said it was very exhausting and he was completeley worn out by the end of each day. He told me that his worst experience was when the mine collapsed when he was working one day. So for two days he was stuck in the mine with no food or water. Finally they managed to get out and fortunately no one was injured. he also told me that he met Hitler once or twice and he wasn't the friendliest of people. Apparently he used to shout alot and spit. In 1945 he was freed and let out of the concentration camp. Though he still had to hide and make sure no Germans would see him as he would have probably been killed. Him and about a hundred other Italians were walking from Germany to Italy. He had to hide in the fields in the day time and could only walk at night. They had to steal food from the fields to survive.

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