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• January 21, 1945

  Today I ran into Paolo Maina at the black market. I often go to said market because it’s the only place where one can see fellow townsmen, plus one can buy anything but at staggering prices. For example: one cigarette costs 3 Marks which is half a day’s pay; a pack of regular Italian tobacco […]

• January 20, 1945

  The siren went off again at noon. It was over by 1:30, thank God they did not attack Munich this time. It’s so odd; as soon as people hear the siren they run like crazy to a shelter while we’re forced to stay in the factory. God help us! Today I took a stroll around […]

• January 19, 1945

  The temperature is freezing again. The siren goes off at 11:30, but luckily it ended soon with no mishaps.

• January 18, 1945

  Today, the temperature felt like October. The snow on the ground, which until yesterday was as dry as sand, has begun to melt.

• January 17, 1945

  Today we four Italians stayed home to work again, we do what we can to get by, we’ve each set up our own lair like foxes. We can still consider ourselves fortunate compared to the men in the lagers, I’ve heard horrible things from Agostino and Ciccillo who’ve lived in the infamous lagers for 16 […]

• January 15, 1945

  At exactly 12:00 noon, the siren went off. We ran into the basement of the factory, we’re all afraid because we cannot go to a shelter, we’re forced to stay in this damned factory which has already been hit twice, luckily it happened at night. At 1:30 the siren stopped and we went to eat […]

• Friday January 12, 1945

  Today we Italians and the two Frenchman stayed home. Three Italians stayed in and did repair work while I went out to get the disaster victim documents for all four of us. I went for the four of us since I’d already done it once on April 25th, so I was familiar with the procedure, […]

• Wednesday January 10, 1945

  This morning we all went to work at the factory, the boss decided that one day the 6 Dutch men will stay home and deal with fixing up the dormitory, then on another day us four Italians plus two Frenchmen would stay home and work. We’re doing all we can to avoid going to the […]

• Tuesday January 9, 1945

  We’re still all working together on our home. We somewhat fixed up the room where we eat, we’ve placed mattresses in there and that’s where we sleep. At noon, a worker from the factory came and forced us go back to work in the factory, but not all of us.

• Monday January 8, 1945

  We woke up at around 9:00, the nuns gave us some coffee and a slice of bread, then we began clearing the rubble. Since we did not show up at the factory for work, at 10:00 our boss came to see what was happening, when he saw us all busy working he understood our situation […]