January 1944

• New Year 1944

  Today is another sad day like Christmas. I’d rather not remember the holidays, it’s nothing but suffering for me.

• January 6, 1944

  Yesterday I went to the Lager where the men from Carinola, San Donato, and environs live. I brought them another jar of honey, which they re-sell to the Dutch, who were also deported by the Germans like us. The Dutch are very nice people.

• January 10, 1944

  Last night while we were sleeping, the siren woke us up. We ran to the dormitory’s basement, after an hour we were able to go back up into the dormitory. There is no damage inside, but outside we can hear the excavators digging amidst rubble and corpses, and firemen trying to put out fires. I’m […]

• January 18, 1944

  Today I went to Lager Fasanerie-Nord where I see Agostino, Ciccillo, Traglia, and Mario Tutone, the Neapolitan evacuee whose wife and family live in Casale. Mario is an intelligent and good man, he proposes we try to escape but I tell him it’s not time yet. I spend the day with them and return to […]

• January 24, 1944

  I’ve returned from work and feel ill, very ill. At 20:00 it’s time for the obligatory shower, but I cannot even move so I stay put. Everyone goes into the dining hall after taking their showers and they eat the usual suppe, but I don’t touch it. My head is burning up, we go to […]

• January 27, 1944

  The Lager guard comes in and says that if I don’t leave he will call the police. Agostino speaks (or rather has someone speak) to our boss Rockinger about my situation. He says he couldn’t care less. So I have to leave the Lager and go back to Munich. I take the tram to the […]

• January 28, 1944

  I’m able to get up, I’m feeling much better.

• January 29, 1944

  Bombs fell last night, all the patients who aren’t seriously ill walk down to hospital’s basement. The others, myself included, are taken down to the basement on their cots through a trap door in the hallway. After a few hours we are taken back upstairs again. The bombs were dropped further away. Today, two German […]

• January 30, 1944

  I asked the nuns for a thermometer, I tell them that when the nurse comes in the morning with the thermometers, I don’t have a fever but in the afternoon I do. They immediately give me a thermometer.

• January 31, 1944

  There’s snow outside and it continues to fall, but it’s warm inside. I want to stay here until this damn war is over. I’ve come up with a plan: with the thermometer the nuns gave me, I go into the bathroom and place it on the radiator until it reaches 39°C then I hide it […]