The Italian Soldier

In WW2 my mothers village in Rhodes was occupied first by the Italians then the Germans.

My grandfather told us a story about a 18 year old Italian soldier who they helped keep alive when the Nazi's began rounding up and executing the Italian men soon after Italy surrenderd in the war. They dressed the teenage soldier up in womens clothes and let him tend the fields with the locals so as to avoid detection. This continued for months during the German occupation but a day before the Nazi's retreated off the island they discovered the soldier, marched him out into the fields and shot him dead. Rightly so, my grandfather could never tell this story without becoming emotional, he could never understand why they shot the soldier and the pure waste of the young man's life has never left him since.

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