December 17, 1943

I went to Rockinger Factory where Agostino La Torre, Ciccillo D’Angelo, Pasquale Traglia, and Mario Tutone work.  Mario is an evacuee from Naples, his family is staying with Filippo Trabucco, the blind man, in Casale.  When the men from Casale saw me they were very happy. I’m assigned to work at a machine that pierces sheets of iron. They have me watch for a few hours, then I start working. The job isn’t bad. At midday we eat lunch at a restaurant across the street from the factory, Agostino, Ciccillo, and I. Lunch is always the same: suppe and kartoffel, with not even a pinch of seasoning. Our pay is 70 pfennig an hour, which makes 40 Marks a week. We can’t buy anything. Not provisions, or clothes, or even a tin of shoeshine, so I go to the black market that is held on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Here, there are people of every nationality, wretches like me, some are even worse off. We do what we can to be understood and we buy some old rags to cover ourselves because it’s terribly cold. If you have a bread ration card, bread costs 36 pfennig a kilo, but at the black market, one bread ration card costs 4 Marks; a kilo of white bread costs 72 pfennig with a ration card, while at the black market it costs 40 Marks, an entire week’s pay! Since I live in Munich, I can often go to the market but my friends can’t because when they leave the factory they must take a tram to the station and then a train to where they live: Lager Fasanerie-Nord. Poor souls, they are worse off than I am because they are hungry, especially Ciccillo.