Original subtitles

Our officer says: "If you want, you can write a letter and leave it where you sleep

as tonight you will go on patrol in that big and very dangerous wood in front of you."

So I did it, I wrote this: "Dear mother, tonight we have to go on patrol

in a large grove hoping to return but if fate does not want it,

I will die for the country and they will give you a pension."

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

days we arrived in Russia. The train stopped because the rails were wider.

We got off the train and as we walked along the railway, there were many teams of women.

For each team there was a German armed with a rifle. They made them work at the rail track.

Moving forward we passed the cemetery of the soldiers who died in 1941.

There was also a pit with the mules who were used in war. From there,

we reached a large square. In that square there was the stop of the Russian trains.

Just when we got there, a freight train with low wagons arrived.

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,

the woman gets off the car, raises her arms to take the child and the German hits her hard

on her arms with his rifle making her fall to the ground with pitiful screams. The child was crying in despair

but the train left with the child on it. On that square there was also a German truck

with side ovehangs. The Germans were doing roundups, they were collecting all the

Russians they found and carried them on that tightly packed truck. Then they closed the overhang,

there were still two or three prisoners, made them climb up the overhang and made them

lie down over those who were standing. The German used the bayonet

to hit them in any part of the body. The prisoners made some pitiful screams and then the truck drove away.

From there we went on and kept walking for many days.

We arrived at a large field. There was the Borgo battalion and the Dronero battalion.

There was also General Battisti who gave a speech on how we should behave with the Germans.

After ten more days of walking, I and someone else were told to take turns

and look around with the telescope. After 10 days that we were

there, as I was on guard, I heard a burst of bullets hitting

the branches of the tree above me. The following day they loaded us into a truck and took us to

where the Don makes a half curve. There we immediately started working at night. Between

us and the Russians there was some 80 meters distance. the Russians were low under so many plants like

"ru" and could not be seen at all. We were higher up. There we began to remove a

lot of earth to make us a place to sleep. Behind us was a large town with houses

and there was also a bank. During the day we slept a bit and dismantled those houses a bit.

We made a lot of finds then we put those beams to hold the earth.

For the vault where we slept, we put five beams on top of each other. About 80

beams in all, then we put a meter and 30 centimeters of earth to be safer because the

Russians occasionally fired the katiusha. When we finished all those jobs

we settled there and immediately resumed work. At that time there were no Russians to be seen.

We started to do the anti-tank ditch in front of us between one team and the other.

Christmas day had arrived and we were still making this ditch but by then the cold was too great.

On January 11 we saw a Russian come up in front of us with his hands up.

The next morning we saw two more Russians in the distance with their hands up

and we sent them in the rear lines. On the 15th the Russians fired two shells

We responded with one. On the 16th the Russians had passed with an aircraft

to throw down leaflets that said: "Italians surrender, you will be betrayed

by the Germans." On the 17th we started the retreat.

An officer says: "Guard these Russians do not let them go away." We walked

over 26 hours without ever stopping. Then we stopped at a bunch of those empty and broken

houses. In the morning we left and on the 21st we arrived in a large valley where there was

the Borgo battalion and the Saluzzo battalion. The Dronero battalion arrived at around

10 in the morning. After about half an hour they call the third team of the eighteenth company,

it was my team so we turned up. They gave us a loaf

of bread a tin of meat and they told us now go up there over those bushes.

it was 250 meters uphill, clean snow: "If you see that the Russians are more than you, come down

and report for orders. We went up there and a quarter of an hour before night came,

we saw the Russians leaping forward very fast and coming towards us.

There were many more than us. We came down and went to the commander in charge and told him about these

Russians. A few minutes later a young and skinny officer comes in front of us and says aloud:

"Where are these Russians? Let's go and get them! "He had a bunch of soldiers,

but it was night we couldn't know the number. They might have been 50 or 60.

He divided the men into two groups. We got into these bushes and there, before we could make more that three steps,

the Russians, who were all hiding behind these bushes, started to fire.

When down at the command they heard the first shots they started shelling with two

mortars. I found myself in front of this group od Russians, I had two hand grenades, this I remember

as it were now, I pulled the safety out with my teeth and I threw this two grenades.

As I threw these to grenades at this group of Russians, one of our officers

ordered "Pull back!" But how to pull back among these bushes and downhill?

So we turned around to leave. The Russians saw that the mortars were firing

over our heads and theirs they came forward shooting. It truly was hell.

I said to myself: "A bullet that is a direct hit!" What i meant was that I preferred to die on the

spot, after seeing the wounded lying on the snow, screaming in pain and awaiting the cold

of the night. Meanwhile, coming down, I found myself next to someone who had raised his hand,

a bullet hits him on his right hand which sprayed blood all over on me.

He immediately fell down. As I was coming coming down, I could hear all the wounded screaming

a pitiful sight. So I got down to these mortars that were still firing

Everyone who was with me had already been killed.

At night my friends from the 18th company came up to me and asked: "What's going on?" "It's the Russians."

I went ahead and walked, the following morning a saw a long line of

German trucks. There was one with the frozen driver still beside the engine.

What a tragic thing. I went on, every now and then I would get into a truck and looked for something to eat.

On a truck I found some pasta, I ate maccaroni and snow.

In the evening I stopped by some houses. The next day I did my walk all morning for

four or five days. So on the fourth day I saw a bunch of soldiers standing still.

I also stopped by. Some of them had taken off their boots,

their feet were swollen, a kind of purple. At that moment a friend of mine, a corporal arrives, he was one of

the mule drivers from Vallera di Caraglio and he says to me: "Haven't you found anything yet?"

and I: "No, I have always walked not like who was given that mule."

The moment he gets off his mule, as his feet touched the ground, he went down on the snow.

At that moment an officer says: "Those who can walk, keep on marching. The others who

remain, someone will come and get them." The next day, as I was walking on this

snow track, I stopped and turned back. I saw a tank coming up

in the snow track fast. I quickly moved 4/5 meters then I lay down

in the snow. The tank passed by, the ground was shaking under the tracks. I got up I started

walking, from time to time i would see a soldier being crushed by a tank.

A pitiful sight . All that remained was a piece of blood drenched cloth.

One evening I was walking, it was getting dark t an I no longer could see houses, nothing.

I had been walking for a long time when I hear someone say to me: "Who goes there!" I quickly reply:

"Italian Alpino!" he says: "Come on." I went ahead, found a door and

opened it. Inside was a small lamp and a Russian woman sitting on the stove.

There were a lot of fascists lying on the ground. These fascists were all volunteers.

We had been sent but they were volunteers. I went up the Russian woman, as there was no place to

lie down. Over the Russian woman was a beam with a loaf of that

black bread on top . Seeing that black bread, my heart started racing like crazy. A few minutes

pass, then it hits me ... I approached the woman's ear and i

whispered to her: "Вашнія комраде вода." The Russian understood I wanted some water

and goes out to get it. I take this bread, I go out and I start running because

I said to myself ; "If they come after me, they will kill me." I ran a lot, it always seemed to me

that there was someone. I went down a hill, I could not see, I kept walking

and passed in front of other soldiers. They weren't Italians, they were foreigners.

I went towards them and at that point I said to myself: "Now I'm good, they don't know. This

bread - I said - is the only bread I will eat in retreat." Because, what the Russians

called kliba, was no longer in any Russian house. Kartoshka or nothing. Going forward

2/3 days I walked and I see two houses on a plateau. I tried to get close to these houses

to see if I could find anything inside.

But the snow tack to this house was covered in corpses. I tried to walk around them, I paid no attention to these dead.

When I arrived at this house I found some flour to sift.

As I was eating this flour with the snow I picked among these dead,

A man taller than me, comes up to me with great confidence and says:

"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."

So I said to him: "Why so many dead? "He already had the flour in his hand, and kindly replied

and pointing with his finger : "You see, up to there; all dead from the Julia."

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...

But this officer had disappeared into thin air. Gone...