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arbeitsbuch für ausländer 1
The fake workbook that the nazis gave my father when they enslaved him.
(I know this is going to be a long description, but, please, read it)
After the armistice with the Anglo-Americans (Sept. 8, 1943) and the deprivation of authority of Mussolini the Italian soldiers like my father, who was 20 years old, were imprisoned by the nazis and sent to some lagers called stalags.
My father was caught on September 9 1943. he had to make a choice. There where two options: he could follow Mussolini in his "Social Republic", or he could keep the oath he took of fighting for his country, Italy. he was a fascist, so he followed the second option (it may sound strange to someone, i know). He became a prisoner of war, for ten days. Then Mussolini sold (it's the only possible verb) those boys who had risked their lives because of his choice of joining Hitler, those boys who had fought fo the country he was claiming to represent.
He was a prisoner of war, he became an "Italian military internee", a definition that isn't in the 1929 Geneva convention for the prisoners of war. What happened? Hitler asked Mussolini the permission to enslave those Italian soldiers who didn't want to join the Social Republic and the Germans. There was no formal declaration of war between Italy and Germany, which had been allied in the beginning of the war. No declaration= no war = no prisoners of war = no rights of the Geneva convention. simple, isn't it?
My father was caught on september 9 1943. he was set free in August 1 1945. He spent almost two years in a stalag as a compulsory labourer (read: slave). He saw his best war friend dying for suicides, or of starvation (he was dying of starvation, too), or just shot by the nazis. When I was a child, not more than 5 years old, he told me everything, even the macabre details.
600,000 Italian military internees. 50,000 of them died. and nobody cares. The only thing they had is a medal of some kind of cheap metal. The Germans didn't even say they are sorry and of course they didn't give them a cent... why? BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T PRISONERS OF WAR! (It sounds so familiar!).
On the memory days they seldom talk about those 600.000 soldiers. They have been forgotten by everyone. Not by me.
Shotdate | -location:
2006
June
03
| Roma (IT)
Camera
| Filmtype:
SX-70
| SX-70
(expired)
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