A blog from World War 2 | Un Blog dalla Seconda Guerra Mondiale

March 8, 1944

When I got home from work tonight, the French man was not in the hotel. I eat with Mattiussi, then he goes home to sleep and I sit with the Schumanns a bit. We talk for half an hour then I go to bed, they go to bed very late because they’re afraid of the siren, which has been going off frequently this month, usually after 11:00 PM. I go into my room and open the closet and notice that some things are missing. I look near the mirror, his photograph is gone. I go down to the lobby and try to explain to the porter what has happened, I’ve learned some German but he doesn’t understand me. He calls in the Schumanns and I explain to them what happened, so they immediately check the address he wrote on the registration forms. Mrs. Schumann has her husband accompany me to the address: a hotel where he said he worked and lived. It’s 10:30 PM, the hotel manager shows me his entire staff, but he’s not there. The information he wrote down was false. Mr. Schumann makes a list of what was stolen from me to give to the porter. He stole: A new shirt, a brand new pair of yellow shoes I never even wore, a sweater, a razor with a brush and shaving cream, and a ration card for one month of cigarettes (84). Mrs. Schumann turned the hotel upside down, but there’s no trace. I ask the Florentine lady if she still has the photograph the Corsican louse gave her so I can show the police, but since she suspected he wasn’t a gentleman, she burned the photo. I ask the porter to report the theft to the police, but he says I have to go do it. I cannot go because my factory boss will not give me time off, so I decide to go to the Fascist Headquarters.

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