European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Then the Americans arrived at my camp.

They left some guards, but we were free to go wherever we wanted.

They began to find calves - I’m not joking! - then slaughtered them

and put the meat in those beer barrels that you can find in Germany.

We had fresh meat after 15 or 20 days,

and every night they would go out to find something,

so we were finally ok concerning food.

Three days without bread

Some of the interpreters, even those who were Italian,

kept telling us there was a chance that Mussolini and Hitler

decided that there had to be no Italian prisoners in this country.

We’re talking about the famous IMIs (Internati Militari Italiani),

Italian interned soldiers who were supposed to wear this acronym on the uniform.

Four or five of us, including two Sardinian sergeants of the Italian financial police (the “Guardia di Finanza”),

managed to convince all the others not to sign. We were 550 in my camp.

They would tell us: “We’ll send you back home to Italy

and there the Monte Rosa division is waiting for you”.

We could only imagine what the Monte Rosa was,

but this is what we would tell them: