PRISONER OF WAR.
Diary of the first four months.

Giovanni Notte

3rd instalment
Lice have appeared. The chap who sleeps below me on the bunk bed, a poor ignorant man from Treviso, who is not accustomed to cleanliness, has found the "tanks" on himself. Then my comrades have made him do his laundry. A joker has given him some shoe grease, pretending it to be some mercurial potion. The poor man is gone to the shower all by himself, and there has greased his whole body quite well.
Lunch allowance has been steadily reduced. They say...by Christmas, but who knows for sure. I am sure now that this Christmas will last a long time; because of the bombing raids. Because food is getting scarce we shall have to pull our belt another notch. Hunger begins to reappear, together with the more and more serious Russian threat. When will this damned scourge end?
In the meantime there has been a nasty development, which has upset me very much: Jovine has been sent back to Puch. He was not unloading bricks with sufficient speed; then within ten minutes he and some others have been caught and sent away. I haven't cried so far, but I have done so when I heard that he had been sent away.
The Holy Christmas is near and we had planned to pass it quite well; besides, in Puch life is bad, very bad. I have even doubted God. I thought: if he exists, why doesn't he end this horrible war? My hate of the Germans increases forever more. When the British savagely bomb the cities, I feel happy, very happy.
December 23-25
Days full of pain and melancholy. Jovine is gone away and my thoughts go continuously to home. Last year I was doing this, at this time I would still be in bed, now I would be on the train, I would be eating. It is so sad to be away from home at Christmas. The saying goes: Christmas with your dear ones..., but not now. I am here, at Hollein, in a barrack.
And my family? Are they alive, are they dead? This morning, December 25, I thought of them and I cried, I cried like a little child, but what can I do about it?. Always fixed in my mind is the parting from my mother. How sad that day!
My son, I would kill you. Oh, my dear mother, how right you would have been to do it that day. I would not have given you so much pain, so much suffering and I would not have had this sad Christmas.
I am here; where is Michael? I see you, mother, crying near the fireplace. You did not have the strength of doing anything [our mother was usually an energetic woman], silent, seated on a low chair. I see father who tries without success to summon his courage and keeps going from the kitchen to the store and back. He looks busy, but he doesn't want to show weakness. He looks mad, shouts, talks loud, but behind our back he too cries.
Poor Antonietta [our younger sister] doesn't know what to do. My dear ones, it so painful not to be near you, not being able to console you, not to be able to lighten your pain.
I wrote you, dear parents, a letter where I have tried to express my great love for you. Now I do understand how much I love you, and how much I owe you.
During Christmas week we skimped on our allowance, so that at Christmas we could eat more, instead...On the 24th some pasta at lunch, and just soup in the evening.
Today 25th, I have started with a little milk and white bread and a salami sandwich. At noon, soup, mashed potatoes and steak plus coffee and all the beer we wanted. This evening I made some broth and I gave half a loaf of bread in exchange for half a chicken. I also made gnocchi. This has been my Holy Christmas.
My two vows made in Pongau have lapsed! But everyone is convinced that before too long we shall go home. What a feast and how much joy that day... In the meantime there has been an air-raid warning, but just the warning.
In the evening I have played "tombola" [a kind of Bingo], a very rudimentary tombola, where the numbers had been written on beer bottle caps. Then we have had a small vaudeville show, and the evening passed in a good mood.
December 26-27-28
The 26th has started as a quiet morning. In the afternoon the order came to go to the railway station and unload five carloads of bricks!. For certain, since my arrival in Germany I must have unloaded at least ten thousand bricks.
In the evening I ate gnocchi and white beans, jam and some butter. The Frenchmen gave us a good ten kilos of beans. The Italian workers, our fellow citizen, feel superior to us and almost look down upon us. Italians, damned race!
On the 27th camp radio has started functioning again. The Brennero bombed, a German battleship sunk, women rebelled in Berlin ( they would have blown up an SS's barrack).
While in Pongau I had given Germany life to Christmas, here in Hallein I extend it to May or June. Will I be lucky this time? I hope so. Good by 1943!
December 29-31
1943 is ending. The weather ha turned raw and snow fell. Still we must keep working. This week I did nothing else but unload bricks. I shall never forget it.
I drank a lot of beer. At midnight I have eaten turnips dressed with vinegar and margarine, then cookies, potato chips, fruit with some sugar, and I stayed up until three. I sang and told jokes and the like.
It would be timely to have a retrospective view of the year, and do a report. What did 1943 give us? Ruins and destruction to Italy, captivity for Italians. At this time I should be an officer, and be home on a furlough; instead I am here in a barrack behind bars at the windows.
What does destiny reserve for us in 1944? All forecasts are very good: this should be the end of the war. The dove with an olive branch in its beak will not need to return to the Ark
Some mail has arrived: a man from Tuscany has learned he became father for the fifth time. Welcome 1944!
I sent home two forms for parcels. The new year begins!. In our souls there is only one hope: that this be the beginning of the end, and of the so much hoped for peace, peace so awaited in the whole world. The new year should be a golden year, the year when suffering of humankind will end, after such a tough test.
Will they stop fighting, will peace arrive? All the people of the world wish so, the politicians promise so.
My thoughts go continuously home, I think and keep thinking. I compare the present circumstances to the past and tear my hair. [He had chosen to join the Navy. His friends who chose the Army were never called to service.]
The snow fell and I think that at home I would have remained lazily in bed, watching the falling snow while under warm blankets. But let's stop whining. What shall I do this new year? Remain alive, pass it the best possible way and return home as soon as possible.
January 2-6 1944
The snow fell abundantly; with it came intense cold. The snow flakes are large, but we must work just the same. In Italy, I am thinking, not even dogs work in a similar weather, and they do not get out either; they curl up by the fireplace, absorbing the warmth, and so they spend the entire day.
Sometimes I think of our miserable existence here. The only important events are waiting for twelve o'clock for lunch and five in the afternoon to go back to our barracks.
I succeeded finally to retain a steady job as a labourer. I spoke to an engineer, to go to work at production machinery, but no luck. He said he would talk to the manager, but I have no hope for it.
We talk continuously of politics and are waiting for the end. There has been news of a landing in France, but it was debunked after only half a day. Otherwise nothing out of the ordinary. We follow the events through reading the paper "The Echo" of Nancy.
On January 6 we work. I see in my mind my sock full of goodies [ The "Befana", a good witch, brought good kids small gifts on the day of the Epiphany. Santa was unknown to us, then.]. Many of us have received mail. I wish I could have some too!
January 7-10
Postcard to Luigi. On the 10th they gave us a postcard. I sent it to Luigi Basile [a family friend in Milan, city then still occupied by the Germans], hoping to get a prompt answer.
Some say that Rome fell, the civilian population of Bessarabia has been evacuated for the last four days, Naples has been occupied. How much of it is true? Who knows!
Our life here is as usual. We think every minute of the grand day, that of freedom. We make projects and think about what we shall do once at home, and what we shall eat. How many times I have configured in my mind my return home! Oh, what a nice day that shall be, what a nice day!
January 11-16
Sent a letter home. A full week has passed, and not a line written in my diary. Laziness perhaps, but fatigue is also responsible. In the evening I return to my barrack all worn out, and I do not have the strength of writing. I have been a week with the masons and my job is to carry the mortar. Who could have told me, on leaving, that I had to end up in Austria as a lowly labourer. At times I look at my university ID card and wonder what it is good for now.
It is only good to be mocked by Mr Mujer, yes, mocked. The other day, January 14, he was passing by in the company of the chief of police and someone else, and he told them laughing that I was a doctor, then he moved away.
I prefer, though, to work with the masons, and work outdoors, now that "leather jacket" is behaving.
Some comrades have received parcels, but nothing for me. Whatever happened to my family? What are they doing now or thinking?
On January 6 I wrote a letter. Before that a good 7 postcards, but still no answer. I wrote Luigi Basile, in the hope that he knew something of my family.
One night, someone started shouting: Catch it, catch it! A bed bug had entered his ear.
The news is more and more optimistic. They talk about three large cities having been liberated in Poland, also Rome, about an army of partisans in France. But the English are not moving!
January 17-31
Laziness and indolence are predominating over me; they are dominating me. I don't have the will to do anything, such as sawing, writing, working. Day after day my boredom increases evermore. When will it end? This question is on everybody's mouth. Each little piece of news is discussed and commented endlessly. We make the Russians make spectacular advances. Unfortunately news here is like a rose: it lasts but a day. In the morning there is a denial of the news broadcast the previous day.
I am one of the main culprits: Rome has been taken and lost four or five times while the Allies are still in Nettuno, about 50 km from the Capital! What will happen of that beautiful city? Will the Germans sacrifice it to prolong their own agony? All barbarians have respected it and saved it. Will these super-barbarians respect it?
The news reader of Radio Rome has had the nerve of saying that, if necessary, it will be defended to the bitter end, that is to its complete, total destruction.
What shall we find of our beautiful Italy? Where these true heirs of Attila the Hun pass, death and ruin pass. May God's wrath fall upon them.
Is my family still alive? What has happened to them? Better not to think of it.
My work is unchanged. Still labourer, with the Frenchmen. I still weigh 75 kilos, but I am afraid that it will take a long time to get used again to live as a civilized person, to think in the future as a professional.
On the 23rd we wrote home. I have been without my family's news for four months now. And to say that if my people had received no news fro me for a full week, they started imagining God knows what. What are they thinking now that such a cataclysm has happened? [ We also had received no news of him at that time, and were asking ourselves the same things, of him
NOTE: At this point there was no more space in the little Agenda book. According to John's verbal report, done afterwards, he had continued to write his diary on a copybook. But this was stolen from him, together with his blanket and few other meager possessions, in Malles Venosta, in Italian soil, at the end of his imprisonment.
He remained in Malles from April 28, 1945 to May 16, 1945, a guest with other prisoners of Piero and Rina Moles.
From the end of January 1944 to April 1945 we do not have continuity of news, but we have been reconstructing that lapse of time through a few postcards sent to a friend in Genoa. In the postcard of March 3, 1944, written to friend Giulietta, he was asking for personal wear items [items that I had abandoned soon after the armistice when I, released from my duty, fled home] , food and some tobacco. He did not smoke, but certainly because it was a valued exchange merchandise. He asked also for news of his family, and brother Michael, who was on duty at Genoa [and had rented a room at Giulietta's.].
In a card dated October 14, 1944, sent from IMST-Tyrol, John thanked Giulietta for sending some parcels and two letters. In it he was saying that he could now write more frequently, because things had changed there. He gave also an important news, that he was now free in his movements, and so it was easier for him to get some additional food. He also said that he had received mail from home.
In a card of November 15, 1944, also sent from IMST-Tyrol, he asked his friend not to send parcels any longer, because in his opinion Italians in the motherland may needs things more than he did. In his words: "Life here is always the same; we work and wait. I hope to be able to go teach in a school here, but so far nothing is sure. Michael is home on furlough. I envy him!
John left Malles on May 11, 1945. After several stops along the East coast {all civilian communications were badly disrupted], he arrived home on June 22, 1945, to find that his dear father has passed away the previous month, of degenerative heart failure!
NOTE: Thanks for having stayed with us to the end of this diary. We hope it gives you a vivid idea of some of the horrors caused by war, by A WAR which, like all wars, did not resolve anything.
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Mike Notte mikenotte@oocities.com