Eyewitness Testimony Giambattista Boldrini

1 Boldrini Giambattista born in Matelica in 1926, rounded up in Matelica May 1944 In the spring of ’44 they took us to Sforzacosta, after a few days in Florence, Piazza S. Maria Novella, seized, unable to go out, with guards. I was not yet 18 years old, without having done anything to anyone. Then they took us to Suzzara, in the province of Mantua, and then reopened us in Innsbruck. We found ourselves near Munich, near a Russian camp that looked like a pack of hungry dogs. After a few days they took us to a small theater in Niedercross. From there, every day we got up at three, after having bathed, cleaned, 108 of us with only one tap, we walked 3 km on foot, 6 by train, another 4 on foot to reach Kahla, this morning and evening. In Kahla there were the beginnings of the camps where we had to live, but for a month and a half we went back and forth. There the works of the V1 and V2 had started, compressed air radio-controlled devices. They unloaded parts every day and took them inside the sheds at the entrance of the tunnels, then after 1 month, 2 months, 2 or 3 devices would depart per day. There we were 25,000 foreigners mixed in the work in every sense, Poles, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Belgians, Dutch, Czechoslovaks, Russians, prisoners of all nationalities; after a while there was sorting: I found myself with friends from Matelica and other older people, a neighbor was a Bolognese, another a Milanese. Winter arrived, in mid-December it snowed a little, it froze, it stayed for 20 days, on the streets we walked slipping with half-naked feet, at noon they gave us a liter of soup, sometimes we found some carrot, a cabbage leaf, turnip broth; in the evening black bread, once 200 grams, once 300, once 400, it was better for animals. In our camp of 1000 people, on average 8 people died per day, and this until spring, around March some fresh air returned, a little better, but the bombings were continuous, we had to go to shelters: there were women with small children, elderly, of all races; it was a period that no one can describe if they have not seen it and if they have seen it, better not to remember it. On April 4 we were liberated by the Americans, then one evening we left in a column, a column from all the camps in the district, which was taking us inland because the Americans were arriving: in the middle of the night I and 7 friends deserted the line, we managed to enter a forest in a curve because there were the SS and the Wehrmacht walking back and forth with pistols and machine guns drawn. We took refuge in a pine forest, we went in for a few km and they no longer found us, then there were also police dogs controlling; for 2 days we were under German artillery and American machine gun fire; one morning, around mid-April, we found ourselves in front of an American column, we were hidden in the bushes, realizing that we were at a distance, the Americans leveled their heavy vehicles to annihilate us, we raised our hands, there was one who had read in a newspaper, in a book, that you had to raise your hands or wear a white armband on one arm, we understood each other. They welcomed us, there were some Americans who spoke Neapolitan, they put us in their trucks and took us to Holstein, those who were not 21 years old, they put two per family, told them to feed us, to clean us; the others, some, if they wanted, could go with the Americans, some went. It was a very bad period, more dangerous than before, there was vandalism, carte blanche, after a few days, it seemed a little better, German families gave us a little to eat, to wash. After this period we were almost fed up, we did not know what to do, if we talked about collection camps, but you had to look for them, and we found them after a long time, but they put you on a list, no more than so many left per day; around June we were thousands; the Americans gave you a bit of everything, but we were impatient to return. One beautiful evening, we went to the Holstein station, they told us about coal trains that left to go towards the Brenner; they told us it was not allowed, but one who is in the dark, if he gets on the uncovered coal wagons, could go towards the Brenner; we waited, when the train arrived, we got on a wagon, 7 of us, with some luggage. It was a beautiful evening, it seemed serene, but towards Bavaria, before Munich, it started to rain and we on this wagon became coal miners; the train stopped at Nuremberg station, we saw on the ground a tire that seemed abandoned, it seemed German stuff, but it was a tire from the American army, Alberto Pecchioni from Milan and I got off to cut a piece of tire, we wanted to take it all, we could not manage, back on we found a...bayonet that a friend of ours had to cut this tire; they put this tire over us (they put it on us, we put it on them) the American police arrived and took me and Pecchioni away. They said we were damaging American war material and put us inside, I started life over again; they put us inside a plank, no food, we told them the truth, that we did not want to damage the American war material, but unfortunately, to cover ourselves, but they didn’t listen, they said we had damaged the war material and deserved trial. Later we managed to talk to another who had been arrested like us, who was Jewish, who spoke Italian, German, English, 3-4 languages and then someone came to visit him from time to time and so we managed to learn our fate. He told me: “You have just turned 18, they won’t do anything to you.” For the other who was 26, 27 years old, the way to Japan was open, “there is a danger that he will have to serve 2 years with the Americans, because they need people to do cleaning.” Anyway, there at the Nuremberg court, after a few days we were tried. He called me and said in German “Warum Boldrini ja kommen in Deutschland?” “You Badoglio or Mussolini?” “nicht Badoglio, nicht Mussolini“ I know they were talking among themselves, an American and some Germans, the interpreter asked me things, I told him the whole truth. Then they closed in the Council chamber. Then the Jew who spoke Italian told me: “You have to answer that you admit to having damaged the war material, but you want to go home, otherwise they will put you on trial.” “If I have to say yes, I say it too, but it’s not true, because if I knew it was American war material, I wouldn’t have cut it; I cut it to cover myself because I thought it was abandoned stuff.” Anyway, I had to answer: “I, Boldrini Giambattista, admit to having done this, this and this to make myself guilty; then I was acquitted, they let me go. They told me: “you can go.” They took me back where they had taken me from, there were other camps there in Nuremberg of Italians and foreigners and I returned to Italy. My other friend was saved because he saved me, he says “we were two.” He was saved because, when I got out, I told him: “what I told them.” He told them the same. And after the imprisonment, we went through a period as if we had been Nazis. We were always in Kahla together with fellow villagers from Matelica, Esanatoglia, Braccano, San Severino, we suffered like dogs and we even risked ending up in the American military court. Arrived home, everything as before. Only I no longer found my father who died of a broken heart during this period or shortly before. When he saw all these photos, all these things that had happened in the newspapers, my father who was 44 years old, was a young man……! He left my mother with 4 children: me, a little sister, another sister, another one. I had to take on the fate of a family and who was responsible for all these beautiful things that happened to us others, as before they wallowed, submitted (not me because I had already understood life, submitted relatively), it had changed very little and I regret this very much, because people suffer, struggle and learn nothing, instead people should understand, suffer and impose themselves. When injustices go on, they say yes and do not do what must be done; they must do what is right, what is just. This is a society that must be straightened out, otherwise the next generations will be a catastrophe, pollution, crime, stench of all kinds. Cigarettes are bad, but you can’t get rid of them, drugs kill, but you can’t get rid of them. Those who get rich with this stuff here, they are already dead, it’s not that they have to die, they are worse than those dead, those stinking for 10 days who are dead, and those who get rich with the fake interest circle should be ashamed. I am 75 years old and I have lived them as best I could and certain things have always disgusted me and people who still get rich should be ashamed of themselves on this earth, they should be ashamed to be seen by the sun when it rises in the morning; they are more worms than those worms that are 3 meters underground, they laugh, wallow, mock the poorest, exploit them, skin them, almost like the Germans did with us. Sorry everyone and I don’t want to know anything else. How and when were you rounded up? I was rounded up like all the others in this area: there were clashes between partisans and rebels, between partisans and Germans and fascists; we were rounded up and taken to Sforzacosta.How did your day usually go? It went as they pleased, whatever they wanted me to do, anything. At first, they had me build a road, it was a company, the Strassenbau, then I assembled huts, I did whatever came up; if a truckload of goods arrived, I had to unload it, if you didn’t do it, there were the SS, there were the guards; whatever I could do, I did, if I didn’t, they forced me to do it. I had some friends who died there, they put a sack of cement on their shoulders, maybe to carry it 10 meters, 20 meters to a place where they had to work and they couldn’t do it, I couldn’t even pick them up. What episode struck you the most in particular? What struck me the most was this: if you had a friend, maybe even a brother, some were brothers, if that one was sick you couldn’t even help him, they told you “Kaputt,” one less. The people returning from the fronts were shrinking, from Italy, from France, from Russia, from the Balkans, from the north, from everywhere, they said there were too many people, if a few died it was better, even if it was a brother, a close friend, you couldn’t even help him. As long as you were fit there, as long as you had the strength to work, they appreciated you a bit, then you were finished, if you died it was better, if you were sick they immediately put you on half rations. How were you liberated? An American column, we were in the middle of the pine forests, we had escaped, they were taking us towards the interior of Germany. In the last weeks, they tried to intern us, in fact the interpreter told us: “Don’t take anything they give you, because they have orders, instead of leaving you in the hands of the Americans or the Russians, they have orders to poison you.” Finally, the best memory and the worst memory regarding this experience you lived through. The best memory: on Christmas Eve, I was going to look in the garbage, I found a rabbit’s entrails, I washed it, cleaned it, and then with some weeds, some potato peels, I made a little soup, that is the best memory. The worst? One day some material arrived to unload, I couldn’t pull down this stuff, they told me in German ron ron, that I had to pull it down, they opened the side for me to pull down these machines, trolley stuff, iron stuff, I wasn’t able, I had never done it, he got angry to give me a beating. I dodged, but he didn’t come after me, he was one of the SS, then he pulled it down himself, but if I had seen him in the face, because I didn’t have a hair of beard, I had never even shaved, I was almost 18 years old, but I looked 14, maybe I looked pitiful to him, and there I saved my skin by little because if I had been a more mature man, he would have killed me.