Eyewitness Testimony Armando Pedica

1 Pedica Armando born in Esanatoglia in 1926, rounded up in Esanatoglia on May 5, 1944 Interviewer: When does your story begin? Pedica: I’m from Esanatoglia… The Germans came… the fascists, they took me from Esanatoglia and brought me here to Matelica. From Matelica they loaded us onto trucks and took us all to Sforzacosta. They kept us there about fifteen days and then one morning there was a kind of half-revolt inside, “the armistice,” “the armistice!” and I ran away to see the armistice, but it wasn’t the armistice, the Germans came back inside, they started shooting, they opened the door, 8-10 of those German dogs got up, they loaded us like you load animals, then beatings, blows; they loaded us like dogs and took us to Suzzara, kept us 16 days, mixed us with the partisans of northern Italy; the Germans watched us closely, with machine guns, a freight train came back, they loaded us worse than animals, put us on the wagons and then sent us off to Germany, later in Switzerland they gave us tea, a kilo of hard bread, but along the railway there were Russian prisoners working and we threw it to them and the Russians killed themselves to get that bread; so I thought “look at these guys killing themselves for bread.” I had a little more and I left it to them! We arrived in Germany. There was another soup of cabbage, turnips, “who had ever eaten that!” From there they took us to the barracks and in the morning they took us to work 2-3 km away from those barracks, to make positions for the barracks for the civilians, because there they were always bombing and the civilians took refuge inside the barracks, the pine woods, I worked there, two or three days; we were starving. There was a creek… There was nothing to eat, there was a stream passing by; there were many fish, long like this; together with a friend of mine I said: “Now we’re saved, we’ll put them on the fire,” we caught 6-7 fish, we wrapped them, we went back to the work place, two policemen arrive, we’re done - I say - my friend says “if for this we can get ruined, anyway we get beaten every minute.” They stopped us, they had seen that we had wrapped them inside a cap, but - my friend says - if they didn’t get the registration number, okay, we’re saved, but then they called us back, took that number; after 2-3 days, that police was no longer seen, see what the next day calls my friend… I say. “we’re finished”; there was a barrack below, the door below, I wait a few minutes, then they come to call me too; my friend had been put against the wall, meanwhile they start asking me questions to see if the words matched. “How many fish did you catch?”, but I hadn’t agreed with my friend, I say “3-4-5”, now my words and my friend’s didn’t match. Then “always the Italians, what scoundrels!” Instead of letting us talk, I never saw that whip, that thing that hit us, with force they made us take off our shoes, that policeman got up… the slaps, the blows he gave us! He made us black, up the thighs, between the buttocks, around the waist, from there, to me and my friend, he calls us and my friend says “But are you Mussolini or Badoglio?” We, kids that we were, many things we didn’t understand, he said “Badoglio.” God save us. The beatings, the blows, he had massacred us; Badoglio for them was a traitor. Then he told me, I told him “Mussolini” and then, after that, he didn’t hit me anymore. From there they took us back […] where we worked. When we arrived they made us take off the rags, we put on overalls, there was a German who had fought the war of ’18 in Italy and when he saw that we had been beaten to a pulp, he wanted to cry and said “I was a prisoner in Italy, but they didn’t treat me like this.” So we felt sorry for him and for that he took us down every day to peel potatoes, carrots, things and there was the kitchen for the civilians, we saved ourselves there, because we took the carrots and put them inside the shoes and ate them. After that, after some time, the war ended and they let us free, eh,… now where do you go? We didn’t understand anything, the roads, we always returned to the pine woods, there we met a fellow countryman, you know one of those countrymen, also a soldier and I said “now, we’re lucky, he keeps us company, right?!” … Instead he left us there, “I on my own, you on your own”… now what do we do?….. We didn’t know where to go, right? We were small…. walk…. walk.. There was a river, on the river the railway, above it had been bombed by the Americans, they had made a crossing, a footbridge of boards, but I was afraid to cross…. If it breaks… we were two Russians, me and a friend of mine; we started to cross in single file, just when I passed a board came loose: into the river with the shoes, it came to me to...I saved those Russians because I had stopped on that bridge that had been bombed, I took a pole, brought myself back up... Now what do we do... we met three American soldiers, they were Americans, but they were Sicilians, they told us, "Never go that way because there are the SS, there is the cleansing. Take this road and always go straight and after you have walked a bit there is an American rest stop, there you are free, you are fine, they give you bread..." We walked, walked, we reached the rest stop. When we arrived, the Americans sent us to clean the rooms where the soldiers slept. Then they said: "Come here, eat." The next day, when we went to lunch, there was risotto, game, roe deer, we ate what we hadn’t seen for a long time, who had seen food like that anymore. From there, they made a circle of American soldiers, they liked to see how much we ate. Now at midnight some pains took me - I said to myself - "if I’m not dead before, I’m dying now." Then they took me to the infirmary, gave me some medicine, then I felt better. From there, these Americans told us, "If you stay here, help with the kitchen, then we’ll take a truck and bring you up to Bolzano; if instead you leave with the train, you will never return; from here we will do the cleansing." We were all full of lice. "Here we do everything we have to do, but if you leave with those others, you have to stop at the station, do everything and you will never return..." But the beatings, the beatings! "Another time - now I remember - the German chef came in, always on this field, and told us: 'Now we are going to load some pieces outside on this truck.' While we were passing along the road (it’s not like in Italy where there are chestnut trees, other trees...) we saw all kinds of fruit. Now, with the hunger we had, we were 7-8 friends, 'shall we give these trees a beating while we pass by?', since what, the stuff falls into the truck... Now, no one wanted to give this beating, always because of fear of those damn Germans, I (I had taken many beatings) gave this beating with a piece of wood, the stuff fell inside; but look who comes, two policemen with bicycles! They stopped the truck. 'Who did it, who didn’t?' Everyone was eating, but no one said 'it was me.' 'It was me,' I say. Now, I got down from there, on the bicycle there was a whip, I already knew what it was; he took this whip, pulled out this rubber nerve and gave me about thirty lashes on the back, on the thighs; for two fruits, huh!? And then, all the others I don’t even remember, otherwise, oh boy! Many things happened. Oh! Many, many...! And then they gave us the wake-up call at 5 in the morning and if someone didn’t wake up, they threw a bucket of water under the bed; there were no blankets or straw, there was nothing, all wood. Then, when we had made the line many times, in the evening they gave you a soup, there were cabbages, beets, turnips, all that stuff, there was nothing else, after you finished it, there was a little something and you lined up to get it, if there was another pot... When I lined up, those Germans came out with a baton, they hit you [...] If you were sick... to get a proper ration?! They gave you half, a little bite more was for three [...]. Then: it seemed that one was bigger, the other drunker, we made a little scale and weighed the bread... Then the Americans took us up by truck to Bolzano. Then, from Bolzano there were things for the allies, they gave us some food, but little! And there where we stayed I remember the Italians, otherwise not there. That’s all, now enough, I don’t remember anything else. Interviewer: And from Bolzano how did you get back home? "I stayed in Bolzano for 15 days, there was nothing to return home, a little by means, a little by things, then I came back by train, but it was dangerous because everyone wanted to leave with this train, it was chaotic; so some climbed on top of the wagons, it was dangerous because there were high voltage wires that were dangerous; they didn’t let us climb and piece by piece we came back here by train, to Ancona, then we came up the same way by train to Fabriano and from Fabriano I took the bus to Esanatoglia and in Esanatoglia, when we arrived, there was the teacher, I met the first teacher who taught me school, and then there was poor mother who was harvesting wheat on a hill, when she saw me, mamma mia!!!! Because we were three brothers in Germany, I was the youngest!!! Interviewer: Were you separated from the others? "No, no, it’s that the other two were soldiers. I, instead, was not a soldier, I was rounded up, I was young, I wasn’t old enough... Eh..! There are many things, I forgot many, ............... but it would take some conscience! Even these Germans here seeing these 17-year-old boys, they should have had more compassion, it’s not like we did harm to anyone....!"