Eyewitness Testimony Angelo Buldrini

1 Buldrini Angelo born in Esanatoglia in 1927, rounded up on May 5, 1944, in Esanatoglia On certain hills, out of fear of reprisals, or because the war was about to end, they took us to Czechoslovakia, we walked on foot for 4 days and 4 nights; while walking along the road every 20 meters there was a dead person, but they were not like us, they were Jews; then we changed route, who knows how many dead were killed! Maybe they took us there on purpose to scare us because they told us that we absolutely must not stop because whoever stopped was dead. They told us: "We don't have ambulances for our soldiers, let alone for you!” We went to Czechoslovakia and something happened to me that is a bit funny: we always walked in line, there were about a thousand of us; I with a companion always walked in front so as not to stop because if you stayed last they said they would kill you. So we entered doorways to see if there was some bucket with something to eat and in the end we ate something. In the city some gentleman threw down potatoes to us and there was a fight to grab these potatoes. Later, when we left, once, at a curve, this is funny: it was a hill, it was in the countryside, a farmer made the same gestures every day, he had a small pig farm. At this curve there were soldiers watching us on bicycles (it was the last days of the war); this farmer left the pigs with the feed underneath (the feed is what is given to pigs to eat); we threw ourselves towards these pigs and they started running everywhere. Meanwhile, we emptied the pigs' feed to find some pieces of potatoes; then the farmer saw all these pigs scattered, he started shouting in German and said all sorts of things. Then the Germans came and fired into the air, but we were all laughing. “We even went to eat from the pigs' testicles!” (laughs amusedly) I was still a boy and we did a lot of mischief, we were 6000–7000 people and we produced jet devices. I worked in a team of about 30 people with the team leader. I, another friend and my cousin left the woods and went to sleep in the barrack. In the evening, however, they gave you a card, the ausweis, and if you were not there in the evening, they would not give you food the next day, because on this card they put a stamp to eat. In the evening we passed through the woods and went to this barrack and almost no one noticed, but sometimes they caught us; once they caught me and my cousin. In this barrack there were 2 doors, a small entrance hall, then there was the second door: suddenly we hear a guard open the door, I had hidden inside the wardrobe and my cousin had hidden under the bunk; the guard who had heard some noise imagined that there was someone inside the barrack and began to open the wardrobe doors, when he opened the door where I was, he saw me inside the wardrobe, he had those glassy eyes, he hit me so hard that I fell to my knees, then he also had a revolver and told me “make your friend come out” (his feet were sticking out from under the bunk). Then he took us to the chief's barrack, the gauleiter, as they called him, who was always beating people; to get fewer beatings, once I passed in front of him, once he passed in front of me. He asked us why we had escaped and we made up that we were sick, because when someone is sick they have to pass the medical exam; then someone came who had a black whip, he put it on the table and told us "this is for you". We didn't care about the beatings they gave us, our terror was the punishment camp. Wherever we went to work there was a punishment camp with the Belgian SS. These SS, when we passed by to go to work, had police dogs and to those who were there in punishment, they cut, maybe the hair, half the head, half the beard and threw the dogs at them or threw stones; this was exactly our terror. This chief made me sit on a bench, made me take off my shirt, kneel and then with the whip he gave me twenty, thirty lashes, I didn't even count anymore, but I didn't care. Instead, when my cousin was whipped, after a while he got up. The chief...got angry, hit her on the ear, I had been hit on the back, but the back hurts less and then he sent us to work. That same evening someone came up and said to us: “Buldrini Angelo and Buldrini Livio,” we thought he was taking us to a punishment camp because for those things they took you to the punishment camp; my friends and I started crying. I said to him: “take my mess tin, take this,” we really thought we were going to die; in the punishment camp people died! So we went to the boss’s hut to see if they were taking us to the punishment camp, but instead we were lucky, more beatings! He said to us “shirts up,” more beatings, then he told us to go to another hut, we went to this other hut, there was an Italian barber, he shaved our heads completely (he left us a tuft) and we had ten days of punishment and we couldn’t wear hats to show everyone that we were punished (but we didn’t care, we didn’t even comb our hair anymore). Then he told us “every evening when you finish working come down and saw wood for us.” But deep down we were happy because we had escaped the punishment camp. But the next morning (it seems that when we went to work the boss had told him there were two punished who couldn’t wear hats) he was inside the hut where the work tools were kept, when he saw us he said “come.” Once inside, we imagined that this guy wanted to beat us, my cousin ran away quickly and he didn’t catch him, I was slower, he kicked me (but I didn’t care much). Another time, we had stolen a pair of shoes: our clogs were full of holes, they were supposed to give us new ones but I don’t know why, that German who was supposed to give them to us didn’t like me and didn’t want to give them to me, there was a small hole, he said they weren’t that worn out yet and since I insisted, he slapped me. At night we saw some Germans undressing, they all wore jackets, they had put the key on a pine tree with a nail; with one guy from Perugia we said: “come on, let’s see if there’s something to eat, maybe we’ll find some bread.” We went up and there was nothing and we took away this pair of shoes, it was a Saturday, on Sunday the boss came “here, two have stolen a pair of shoes” - it seems that on Sunday, we also worked on Sunday, going home, they no longer found the shoes - “I don’t even want to know who stole them, this was a good German, just go get them and put them back.” Our countrymen were afraid, they thought “tomorrow morning the Gestapo will come up, beat everyone!” Our comrades didn’t want to take the beatings for us. They had realized that we had stolen them. They told us to go get them. We went to get them, put them back and then ran away and went to sleep. In the morning, at night we worked, instead my cousin came “Run, run, go, go... you two, if you don’t say who it was, he’ll tell the Gestapo, he’ll kill you, the boss is waiting for you.” Because, as I said, they had to give us the ausweis, the stamp to eat. We ran and returned to the hut. This guy told us: “There’s nothing to do guys, here in Germany for a pair of shoes they kill you!” We started crying again, we didn’t know he was joking, the only good German we had found! “Were you a thief in Italy?” “What thief, my shoes were all worn out, another pair wouldn’t give them to me!” “Then there’s nothing to do, I’m obliged by the Gestapo, they kill you...” and that other one cried too, his name was Viola, I remember... Then there were all shovel handles... I said to him “hit me, just don’t tell the Gestapo.” I felt so sorry for him... we were on our knees, he stroked my hair and said “no one knows anything, go, go.” The only time I found a good German... I was left speechless. Another time I saw a terrible thing, they took us to camp 7, it was Easter day, near us there was a dead man, we went down to the boss to tell him to take him away. He answered “we’ll come now,” but... it was evening and no one had come, we went back down to tell him. He sent two Italians up, they told us “help us put this dead man up,” we put him on a stretcher and we went to...a hut, an Italian had the key, he was certainly a collaborator, he opens it: inside there was a big pit, there were all dead bodies, we threw it down. But look at this! So they wouldn’t let us see where they threw the dead! They must have burned them, all those dead! We saw the hut every day, we never thought it was a tomb for those who died. Many things happened to me... Another time... even just to go to the bathroom I got a lot of beatings! They had made carts for people to relieve themselves, but they were full, you couldn’t get in anymore. Not far away I saw some white toilets, white, very clean, I go - we were full of lice - when I came out a Gestapo man came in, he was a giant, the beatings he gave me! Then he let me go. But, to say, I got beaten even just for going to the bathroom...! But I was a bit restless, sometimes I told them to go to hell, they understood and filled you with beatings, so I took some blows I could have avoided. When they took us to Czechoslovakia, I saw one from Matelica die. Since when we passed through towns (we walked 4 days and 4 nights) women threw down some potatoes, everyone had 4-5 potatoes in their pockets and, when they let us rest, we went to the pines to get some dry twigs to light a little fire to cook them; we were always two, I had a companion who died, he climbed up, I was below gathering those little branches, I turn around, I see a German with a rifle, he looks at us as if he didn’t know who to choose. So I told my friend “get down, get down,” the friend got down, he turned around, pahhh! he killed my friend from Matelica! ... That’s how you died, stupidly. When we went to wash, there were all long pipes, we were 6000-7000 people, in the last times there were 7-8-9 deaths every day. From hunger a friend of mine died. Since they gave us a piece of bread in the evening, we divided it: a piece for the evening, a piece for the morning, he was very big, his name was Chiappa Italo, he couldn’t make it, so in the morning he looked at the rest of us... there you become selfish from hunger. Even if it’s your brother you don’t give him a piece of bread, you don’t give anything to anyone. You become selfish! You always look on the ground to find something, from hunger! There you become selfish. He couldn’t make it anymore; his cousin said to him: “Let’s do this: we divide only one ration, the other I hide in the locker, so tomorrow morning we take it and divide it.” It lasted 5 or 6 days, then he started crying: “I want my bread, my bread!” after 5 - 6 months he died of hunger. We were working, a German came up, he said: “Who is Chiappa Giuseppe?” “It’s me.” “Your cousin is dead.” He asked “Where is he?” They took them to a cemetery that had mass graves, the cousin couldn’t go! How and when were you rounded up? I was rounded up in Esanatoglia because there was the shooting of 2 people, because they had killed two Germans, two SS officers who came to the tannery to take some hides. The partisans of Esanatoglia, when they heard about the two Germans, went to kill them, one they killed in the tannery, another jumped a bridge, lu Cascu. When this one jumped the bridge (I was there, I was not a partisan for God’s sake, there were Slavs [...] he broke his legs, he tried to get up, there was a Slav, he said to him “die scoundrel” ta...ta..ta... Where the Esino river is born. For this reason, the Germans came on April 1st and did a roundup, they told us “from the class of ’27-28, up to 80-90 years old all in the square”; they had also killed a boy from Esanatoglia, in Lentino, in the countryside, who had joined the partisans. They divided: there was the church with the little square, they divided 2 or 3 on one side, 3 or 4 on another, they had to kill 20, according to the law (10 for each German killed), instead they killed only two. I was a boy, Germans and fascists were mixed! I was there, watching, I was watching the rifles of these, I could think anything but that these would shoot (there was the street, the wall, the church square), they were not in line, so as not to draw attention to us, because all of Esanatoglia was on that square.Then a fascist officer said, "If you feed the partisans" — he blew up 3 houses — "we will blow up all of Esanatoglia, and moreover, to show that we will follow through on our words, we will shoot Mr. Ubaldini Paolo and Pistola Guido." They fired, I saw them: one, if he hadn’t killed him, would have died anyway; another said, "poor my family!" then they riddled him with bullets, he fell down, afterwards they took the carts and ran away; we took the dead to the hospital and after a few days they came up and told us, "We will take you to work," they never said they were taking us to Germany. "Whoever does not show up from the 27th onwards, we will blow up their houses." We showed up in Matelica, they took us to Sforzacosta, they went in alphabetical order, I was one of the first, because then Sforzacosta was bombed and some escaped, I was already in Austria then. Q: What kind of work were you assigned to and how did the day go? The first days they made us work, they let us rest on Sundays, then there were no more Sundays, we worked all the time, even at night we did shifts. Q: What kind of work? Manual labor, with a pickaxe and a shovel, we made roads. The roadbeds. Once, as the roads were being made, I was left alone, the boss had told me: "When you finish here, join the others" who had meanwhile gone ahead; I had half fallen asleep, a German came up, I hadn’t noticed, he slapped me, hit me with the pickaxe, 4 blows, blood came out of my teeth, from my lips. Afterwards I thought about it, even though I was young, I thought, "But this guy, if he has a family, what does he tell them? Today, a kid, because he wasn’t working, I hit him here?!" Q: The episode that struck you most or that you remember more than any other? When they cut my hair in a cross, we thought they were taking us to the punishment camp, the punishment camp was terrible. When we passed by there were Belgian SS, dressed in black, they made themselves seen when you passed, you could see the camps well, they were a bit higher up; so they, to intimidate us, when we passed, would release wolf dogs at us or amuse themselves by throwing stones, that was the greatest terror, you hardly ever came out alive; I escaped 2-3 times, we were near Buchenwald, 20 km away, the extermination camp. Our fear was the punishment camps, you hardly ever survived. Q: How were you liberated? We were in a German city, Eisenach, at a certain point the Germans left us. We woke up one morning in Czechoslovakia, we found ourselves in a basin and didn’t know we were in Czechoslovakia, we had never left home, they shouted: "The Germans are no more, the Germans are no more." Then, when we started walking through the villages asking for alms, we ate quite well, they didn’t mistreat you, the Czechoslovaks. But then the Czechoslovaks put us in a concentration camp; later we understood we were outside Germany because there were soldiers with the red star, they were Russians, that’s how we understood we were in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovaks put us in a concentration camp because an interpreter told them that they had put Italians inside a factory, but these Italians had sold all the machinery to Czechoslovak families, so they put us in these camps, prisoners, but they gave us food. Afterwards we managed to escape and returned to Germany and one day on the street a truck stopped, they were Americans. We were returning to Italy, we had a baby carriage, we didn’t even know where we were going. In this truck, one was of Sicilian origin and told us: "If you go like this, when will you get home?" They made us wait, then they came to get us and made us stay in a theater. We were 4 days under the Americans, 4 days under the Russians, the front did not proceed parallel, they had divided the borders, then little by little the Russians took us on a train in the middle of a countryside, then until the Americans arrived, the Russians wouldn’t let us leave. We were 18 days traveling inside a train, but they gave us food. Q: The best memory? When that German told me he hadn’t told anyone anything, I remember he stroked my hair... I would have brought that German to Italy. Now he’s dead, I’m 75 years old, he was about forty. Q: The worst memory? I have many, but when they cut my hair in a cross, the fear of the concentration camp, 10 days of punishment, without a hat, without anything.