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• April 27, 1944

  Tonight we slept in the shelter on benches without blankets, it was very cold. By day we wander around looking for a room to rent, but no luck, there are 100,000 people without a roof over their heads now. They certainly devastated this place.

• The night of April 24, 1944

  The siren goes off, I get up quickly and call for Mattiussi, he’s already getting dressed too. I ask him if he’s coming to the bunker with me and he says he’d rather go to the guesthouse basement. So I put on my coat and run out to the shelter, it’s already full. As soon […]

• April 9, 1944

  Easter! Christmas passed and Easter has arrived, and I am still far from my dear family without news of them! When will it end?? This morning we went to Mass and at midday we all ate together at a hotel in Baierbrunn. It was a special lunch: two/three potatoes wedges and a soup that should’ve […]

• Holy Saturday April 8, 1944

  Agostino, Ciccillo, and I went to Baierbrunn, 15 kilometers outside of Munich where many other men from Casale live: Antonio Aurilio, the Cerbarano brothers, Alfredo Lepore, Felice Taffuri, and many others. They welcomed us happily, we spent the night there with our fellow townsmen.

• March 30, 1944

  The siren goes off again while we’re sleeping, but they didn’t come to Munich this time either.

• March 26, 1944

  While we are sleeping, the landlady comes to wake us up: there is an air raid warning. I go to the usual shelter because it’s safe, Mattiussi doesn’t want to go outside in the cold so he goes to the guesthouse basement. There’s 25 centimeters of snow outside and it’s still coming down. After 30 […]

• March 25, 1944

  I gave up my hotel room and went to the guesthouse on Kreuzstrasse 34/1 where Mattiussi stays, I negotiated 36 Marks a month. Our rooms are next door, in the morning whoever wakes up first, wakes the other one up.

• March 24, 1944

  Mattiussi spoke to his landlady, there is a free room at his guesthouse.

• March 23, 1944

  At night we eat at the same place, myself and Mattiussi from Trieste. I ask him if there is a free room at his guesthouse because I pay a lot where I am: 16.40 a week just for the bed.

• March 21, 1944

  Today we go to work like we do on every Monday; Mondays are horrible in Germany! When will this be over? I wrote to my brother in Terni, to my cousins in Rome, to my brother-in-law in Pianosa, begging them all to somehow give my wife news about me.