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Our officer says: "If you want, you can write a letter and leave it where you sleep
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as tonight you will go on patrol in that big and very dangerous wood in front of you."
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So I did it, I wrote this: "Dear mother, tonight we have to go on patrol
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in a large grove hoping to return but if fate does not want it,
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I will die for the country and they will give you a pension."
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In the first days of July 1942 I left San Damiano Macra and marched towards Busca with my backpack. In Busca we took the train, in cattle cars. After fifteen, sixteen
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days we arrived in Russia. The train stopped because the rails were wider.
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We got off the train and as we walked along the railway, there were many teams of women.
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For each team there was a German armed with a rifle. They made them work at the rail track.
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Moving forward we passed the cemetery of the soldiers who died in 1941.
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There was also a pit with the mules who were used in war. From there,
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we reached a large square. In that square there was the stop of the Russian trains.
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Just when we got there, a freight train with low wagons arrived.
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A woman with a three-year-old child was on one of the wagons, there was also a German armed with a rifle. The train stops,
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the woman gets off the car, raises her arms to take the child and the German hits her hard
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on her arms with his rifle making her fall to the ground with pitiful screams. The child was crying in despair
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but the train left with the child on it. On that square there was also a German truck
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with side ovehangs. The Germans were doing roundups, they were collecting all the
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Russians they found and carried them on that tightly packed truck. Then they closed the overhang,
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there were still two or three prisoners, made them climb up the overhang and made them
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lie down over those who were standing. The German used the bayonet
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to hit them in any part of the body. The prisoners made some pitiful screams and then the truck drove away.
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From there we went on and kept walking for many days.
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We arrived at a large field. There was the Borgo battalion and the Dronero battalion.
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There was also General Battisti who gave a speech on how we should behave with the Germans.
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After ten more days of walking, I and someone else were told to take turns
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and look around with the telescope. After 10 days that we were
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there, as I was on guard, I heard a burst of bullets hitting
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the branches of the tree above me. The following day they loaded us into a truck and took us to
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where the Don makes a half curve. There we immediately started working at night. Between
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us and the Russians there was some 80 meters distance. the Russians were low under so many plants like
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"ru" and could not be seen at all. We were higher up. There we began to remove a
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lot of earth to make us a place to sleep. Behind us was a large town with houses
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and there was also a bank. During the day we slept a bit and dismantled those houses a bit.
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We made a lot of finds then we put those beams to hold the earth.
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For the vault where we slept, we put five beams on top of each other. About 80
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beams in all, then we put a meter and 30 centimeters of earth to be safer because the
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Russians occasionally fired the katiusha. When we finished all those jobs
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we settled there and immediately resumed work. At that time there were no Russians to be seen.
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We started to do the anti-tank ditch in front of us between one team and the other.
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Christmas day had arrived and we were still making this ditch but by then the cold was too great.
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On January 11 we saw a Russian come up in front of us with his hands up.
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The next morning we saw two more Russians in the distance with their hands up
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and we sent them in the rear lines. On the 15th the Russians fired two shells
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We responded with one. On the 16th the Russians had passed with an aircraft
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to throw down leaflets that said: "Italians surrender, you will be betrayed
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by the Germans." On the 17th we started the retreat.
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An officer says: "Guard these Russians do not let them go away." We walked
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over 26 hours without ever stopping. Then we stopped at a bunch of those empty and broken
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houses. In the morning we left and on the 21st we arrived in a large valley where there was
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the Borgo battalion and the Saluzzo battalion. The Dronero battalion arrived at around
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10 in the morning. After about half an hour they call the third team of the eighteenth company,
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it was my team so we turned up. They gave us a loaf
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of bread a tin of meat and they told us now go up there over those bushes.
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it was 250 meters uphill, clean snow: "If you see that the Russians are more than you, come down
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and report for orders. We went up there and a quarter of an hour before night came,
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we saw the Russians leaping forward very fast and coming towards us.
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There were many more than us. We came down and went to the commander in charge and told him about these
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Russians. A few minutes later a young and skinny officer comes in front of us and says aloud:
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"Where are these Russians? Let's go and get them! "He had a bunch of soldiers,
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but it was night we couldn't know the number. They might have been 50 or 60.
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He divided the men into two groups. We got into these bushes and there, before we could make more that three steps,
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the Russians, who were all hiding behind these bushes, started to fire.
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When down at the command they heard the first shots they started shelling with two
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mortars. I found myself in front of this group od Russians, I had two hand grenades, this I remember
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as it were now, I pulled the safety out with my teeth and I threw this two grenades.
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As I threw these to grenades at this group of Russians, one of our officers
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ordered "Pull back!" But how to pull back among these bushes and downhill?
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So we turned around to leave. The Russians saw that the mortars were firing
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over our heads and theirs they came forward shooting. It truly was hell.
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I said to myself: "A bullet that is a direct hit!" What i meant was that I preferred to die on the
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spot, after seeing the wounded lying on the snow, screaming in pain and awaiting the cold
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of the night. Meanwhile, coming down, I found myself next to someone who had raised his hand,
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a bullet hits him on his right hand which sprayed blood all over on me.
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He immediately fell down. As I was coming coming down, I could hear all the wounded screaming
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a pitiful sight. So I got down to these mortars that were still firing
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Everyone who was with me had already been killed.
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At night my friends from the 18th company came up to me and asked: "What's going on?" "It's the Russians."
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I went ahead and walked, the following morning a saw a long line of
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German trucks. There was one with the frozen driver still beside the engine.
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What a tragic thing. I went on, every now and then I would get into a truck and looked for something to eat.
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On a truck I found some pasta, I ate maccaroni and snow.
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In the evening I stopped by some houses. The next day I did my walk all morning for
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four or five days. So on the fourth day I saw a bunch of soldiers standing still.
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I also stopped by. Some of them had taken off their boots,
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their feet were swollen, a kind of purple. At that moment a friend of mine, a corporal arrives, he was one of
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the mule drivers from Vallera di Caraglio and he says to me: "Haven't you found anything yet?"
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and I: "No, I have always walked not like who was given that mule."
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The moment he gets off his mule, as his feet touched the ground, he went down on the snow.
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At that moment an officer says: "Those who can walk, keep on marching. The others who
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remain, someone will come and get them." The next day, as I was walking on this
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snow track, I stopped and turned back. I saw a tank coming up
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in the snow track fast. I quickly moved 4/5 meters then I lay down
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in the snow. The tank passed by, the ground was shaking under the tracks. I got up I started
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walking, from time to time i would see a soldier being crushed by a tank.
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A pitiful sight . All that remained was a piece of blood drenched cloth.
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One evening I was walking, it was getting dark t an I no longer could see houses, nothing.
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I had been walking for a long time when I hear someone say to me: "Who goes there!" I quickly reply:
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"Italian Alpino!" he says: "Come on." I went ahead, found a door and
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opened it. Inside was a small lamp and a Russian woman sitting on the stove.
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There were a lot of fascists lying on the ground. These fascists were all volunteers.
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We had been sent but they were volunteers. I went up the Russian woman, as there was no place to
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lie down. Over the Russian woman was a beam with a loaf of that
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black bread on top . Seeing that black bread, my heart started racing like crazy. A few minutes
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pass, then it hits me ... I approached the woman's ear and i
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whispered to her: "Вашнія комраде вода." The Russian understood I wanted some water
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and goes out to get it. I take this bread, I go out and I start running because
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I said to myself ; "If they come after me, they will kill me." I ran a lot, it always seemed to me
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that there was someone. I went down a hill, I could not see, I kept walking
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and passed in front of other soldiers. They weren't Italians, they were foreigners.
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I went towards them and at that point I said to myself: "Now I'm good, they don't know. This
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bread - I said - is the only bread I will eat in retreat." Because, what the Russians
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called kliba, was no longer in any Russian house. Kartoshka or nothing. Going forward
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2/3 days I walked and I see two houses on a plateau. I tried to get close to these houses
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to see if I could find anything inside.
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But the snow tack to this house was covered in corpses. I tried to walk around them, I paid no attention to these dead.
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When I arrived at this house I found some flour to sift.
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As I was eating this flour with the snow I picked among these dead,
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A man taller than me, comes up to me with great confidence and says:
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"Do you want to trade?" And I say "Sure." I give him the flour, he takes it and he says to me: "I'm an officer."
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So I said to him: "Why so many dead? "He already had the flour in his hand, and kindly replied
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and pointing with his finger : "You see, up to there; all dead from the Julia."
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I turned in the direction he was pointing at. Then I turn back and ask: " How many will there be?" Because I had no idea...
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But this officer had disappeared into thin air. Gone...14626
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