Giuseppe Trinchera witness of the atrocities
As every year on the 27th on January we celebrate the memorial day to remember the victims of the Holocaust. This year we had the luck to share with our teacher Prof. Mariella Trinchera her father’s history.
In these days infact the Republic President Sergio Mattarella with a public decree has granted the honour medal to the memory of Mr Giuseppe Trinchera. This medal is granted to the family members of the deportees and interned in the nazi concentration camps during the second world war.
We could notice how our teacher was moved to receive such a honour.
In class she told us about the hard life that her father had to endure . Mr. Giuseppe Trinchera was born in 1922. At the outbreack of the war he was senta s a soldier to the island of Lero in Greece.here he initially fought together with the Germans, but as soon as things changed and Italy was no longer a German ally, they took all the italians prisoners and sent them to the various labor camps. Giuseppe was deported to the “Death camp”in Hemer (westfalia).
Here he worked in the coal mines , descending till 800 meters underground. Our teacher told us that during this period her father fed only on potato skins, soups and whatever he found among the german waste.
In addition to hunger and hard work they had to deal with the bombings on the site where he was interned. As long as the days passed the terror got stronger and stronger as many comrades died under his eyes.
At the end of the war after many misadventures , he was given an identity card as a refugee.
With great difficulty he suceeeded in returning home. When he arrived his wife didn’t recognize him as he wighted 55 kg. This experience had changed him both inside and outside. For a long period he suffered with nightmers.
Surely for us this was an exeperience which we won’t forget easily because for the first time we lived history instead of studying it on books.