martedì 26 febbraio 2019

Never left the Soup again


So it is a while I am thinking I have to do this... But it looks so complicate that I even don't know from where to start. To make it short I like to live the present, fully, without thinking too much about past time and tring to do not think too much also about the future. In this case it will be about the present but with some exceptions. I would like to write the story of my grandfather and I would like it written for my child, as it is a story that must be remembered. My grandfather when was 18 was sent as a soldier into the 2nd world war to conquest Serbia. He was a balilla under Mussolini and he had to obey whatever was ordered. So he was trained as a machine gunner when the war happened he had to leave everything and he was so young though. During the Serbia' campaign there were many complications for him as they were in the middle of a guerriglia. Few time after they were in Serbia  it happened the armistice and  he was captured as a political prisoner by the Germans. Once in Dakau he told me that they were asked to sign and if they wouldn't accept the forced labour into the mine they were shooted. He survived and during the prisons' time he even learned to speak German. So well that a certain point Germans were going to kill him as they believed he wasn't italian but a german betrayal. Only his friend, an Italian guy son of a very important family, prisoner too, could save him with his prompt action. Telling he teached him German in night time. I still remember so well my grandfather Vittorio telling me that while he was a prisoner he could eat only sometimes few potatoes peels, everything was so dramatic. With such cold winter and no shoes the mine labour was going to make him loose his feet. They became black, a German doctor saved them by pulling off all the flesh of his feet. Because of this he was sent to another forced camp, no more mine but vegetable garden into a greenhouse for some German chief. Thanks to England and USA bombing, after a while under the earth he realized he was alive, barely he could breath and he escaped. With some other prisoner survived they moved toward Hungary . Tring to survive the were again captured by the Cosacchi that left them without clothes and shoes. He was kind of 30 kilos weight when with his fellows they met Russians, that fed them to survive. He still had his clock and when a soldier tried to steel it, his chief shooted thieve in the head, in front of my grandfather who said it didn't matter as much though. The Russian General said no place for thieves. With the Russian army my grandfather reached Berlin and then he could come back home to my grandmother that patiently was waiting for him all this time. At the beginning she received his letters, when he was prisoner they were all black, all censored, but at least she knew he was alive . Then for a while with no letters it was much more difficult for her to believe he could make back home. My grandfather died at the age of 72, he loved the nature, he received even a medal from the army and he loved cats and all animals. Of course he loved his children and his nephews.  I bring his surname. He was from Venice. He was very lucky and he had to fight for his life. Every time we were at dinner together and I didn't want to eat the soup he told me the story of the potatoes peels. The soup never left again.
To my grandfather to my grandmother that are watching by the sky. 
To my baby and my nephew and all the new generations that could remember this story as a treasure.

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