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XIV – September 8, the armstice In July 1943 Mussolini had been arrested and on September 8 was declared an
armistice. The little king Vittorio Emanuele, along with General Badoglio, the
new head of government, fled to the south of Italy, already occupied by the
Americans, leaving the army and Italy in disarray. Meanwhile, Mussolini, freed
by the Germans, had founded the Italian Social Republic with capital Salo’.
I then found myself in Tuscany, in a small town called Fornacette, and belonged
to the second company of cadets, where we had gone to complete the course. In
fact, in Fornacette I stood for my last exams to become a lieutenant, exactly on
the 7th of September, the day before the armistice. I remember the rather
ridiculous episode that happened on the ninth of September.
The commander of our company was a Lieutenant called Santangelo. I would not know how to define him... a Neapolitan, particularly silly. Our task was to disarm the Germans, our new enemies. Our commander took us to an area of an old, desecrated church, which had been turned into a stable. Above the manger of the ass there was still a fresco of the Madonna with Child. All the cadets were lying on the grass outside, with bullets in the chamber of muskets and, ready for a hypothetical battle.
I, being the only vedette, was hiding behind the wall while the lieutenant was inside the stable.
At one point, on the road, appeared a car from which a German soldier came out and walked straight to the church. He saw me and asked: “Where is your commander?”
I called the lieutenant and told him that there was a German who wanted to say something. The German told him to immediately deposit the weapons. Our brave lieutenant told him that we were only cadets in drills and immediately offered him his gun. The German took all our rifles and broke the butt of each one knocking it down firmly on a big rock that was in that garden. All the guns had a cartridge in the chamber, so we expected that, at any moment, a shot would kill the soldier, who grabbed the guns by the barrel before tossing them on the stone.
Instead nothing happened.
One soldier brought our entire company on the road as prisoners. The other German soldier never came out of the car. However, most of us fled into the surrounding woods and ended up at the huge pine forest of Livorno, at the center of which there were many fig trees. For days we could only eat the skins of the figs left by the birds who had eaten the fruit.
In a farmhouse, on the edge of the pine forest, a Tuscan farmer, in exchange for my uniform, had given me a pair of terribly ragged pants, a ripped shirt and some boiled potatoes. With these, I had made up his mind to reach Sassuolo, where I was renting a room and had decent civilian clothes.
The trip was a nightmare. At every stop there were Germans who raked, from the train, all soldiers in uniform.
When we arrived in Modena, I saw many Germans on the sidewalk of the station. I walked towards the end of the long train and, after getting off, I walked in a lane, on the outskirts of Modena.
. At the end of
it I saw a German soldier, so I rang the door closest to me. A young lady opened
and asked me what I wanted.
I explained my situation and begged her to help me.
She made me enter and prepared for me a cup of milk with magnificent Emilia
bread of which I will never forget the taste. While I was eating that divine
food, she mended my pants. More than a lady, to me she looked like an angel.
 After having fed me, she showed me how to get to the railroad for Sassuolo,
where I arrived a few hours later and, after a wonderful refreshing shower, put
on my civilian clothes that I had in the room since the beginning of the course.
24/8/2013
XV - Mr Talamo
After the armistice, thousands and thousands of former southern military were
disbanded in northern Italy and unable to reach their families for lack of means
of transport. No trains or buses. Nothing worked anymore.
In the Milazzotto’s apartment there were living the four of us and it was
incredibly cold. I do not remember having felt such cold, as then, in my entire
life.
With me and Milazzotto there were also two other shoemakers from Bronte,
also military remained in northern Italy. One was Salvatore Trischitta and the
other Nunzio prestianni. I do not know, but I doubt that they could still alive.
We had a small space heater to coal or wood.
 We have burnt into it many things. All superfluous chairs, baseboards and frames
of doors and windows of all the rooms, and some little coal that the mother of
my girl, Lina, could help us to buy. In the evening, before going to bed, we
used to wear balaclavas and everything we had and, also, we used to put, between
the covers, lots of crimpled paper of newspapers that we could get, with the
help of my little Lina.
Often came to visit us a Mr. Talamo. He had been living in Milan for a long time
and was the brother of a dear friend of mine, Gennaro Talamo from Bronte (photo
on the right, n.d.r.). He
was a representative, I do not know exactly of what, but he helped me a lot by
bringing me first some leaves of tobacco that I would wet, roll with patience
and with the help of a tool, made by me, which contained a razor blade, I sliced
those rolls to make pipe tobacco that he sold, thus making me earn a few bucks.
I was also taught by him to make models of women’s shoes. Wuth the help of
cardboard cutouts that he had given me, I could design various styles and add
many decorations. I made lots of them, of all types and for all seasons. Mr. Talamo could sell them and he was giving to me most of the money he could get.
25/8/2013
XVI - The Liberation
I lived with Milazzotto from the winter of ‘43 until May of ‘45.
Then I had a fake id and my name was Joseph Cataldo, from the province of
Trapani and born in 1911. The moter of my girlfriend Lina, who had all the right
contacts in the undergrowth of Milan, had procured it for me. I belonged to the
brigade Garibaldi in Milan, where I met some important members of the Italian
Communist Party.
On the 25th of April 1945, the day of liberation, a
revolution broke out in Milan. The partisans had come down in the city and the
Germans were surrendering everywhere. Even from the building where I lived a
small group of young people left in a van.
We had no real weapons. I had a emptied hand grenade that
belonged to a neighbor. A relic from the great war. Another had a small real
gun. The others had some shotguns or fake pistols.
With those weapons, partly false, we attacked a big truck of
Germans who immediately raised their hands and gave us the vehicle that was
loaded with all sorts of good things. We went immediately to deliver all at a
collection center, close to Piazzale Loreto. Instead, we later learned that many
of the so-called honest partisans took possession of everything confiscated from
the Germans on the run.
The disorder in Milan was total. A few days later we heard the
news that Mussolini had been captured, killed and hung, by his feet, in a
service station in Piazzale Loreto. Nunzio Prestianni and I went to see ... An
infernal scene. The body of the leader hung on to the remains of a roof of a
demolished service station still wearing a German coat. Next to him was also the
body of his mistress Clara Petacci, she was hung by her feet and her skirt was
stopped by a hook a little above the knees. The crowd around was going
absolutely crazy.
I remember an elderly woman who took a gun from a partisan and
fired three shots to the body of Mussolini shouting the names of his three sons
who had died in the war. I remember the pick-up on which Achille Starace was
brought, wearing a suit of gymnastics. His eyes were bulging. He was terrified.
They knocked him off the car, and, on the ground, he was trying
to attach himself to the legs of a huge partisan, who pushed him away with a
kick and discharged on him his machine gun. It was creepy ... they tied his feet
with wire and hung him next to his beloved leader while his body was still
moving in the process of death.
For several days I had these things in front of my eyes and I
found it hard to eat without the wish to overthrow.
26/8/2013
XVII - To export democracy
The situation in Syria is becoming
extremely hot. With the use, more or less proved, of chemical weapons, Obama
wants to start an armed intervention to punish Assad, the king of Syria, who,
for years has been fighting a revolutionary movement assisted by Al Caida.
America, with these unwise interventions in Europe, Vietnam,
Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Tunisia etc.. tryes to export his beloved democracy in
countries that often, with this political system, become absolutely
ungovernable. I hope that the U.S. Congress would reject these despicable
Obama’s cravings, as did the British parliament.
Our Pope Francis is absolutely against the initiative of Obama
that could lead to a world war. I agree with him. To democracy, if this really
exists, we should arrive with the maturity of the people, not by coercion or
war.
31/08/2013
XVIII - Malthus theories
Finally, this month of August is gone. We still have nine days to the fateful
date on which the revocation or less of the Berlusconi’s political freedom
will be voted. Whatever happens, I do not think that the Letta government
will fall after a possible negative outcome of this vote in the Senate.
Berlusconi contradicts himself. He says that if the Democrats will vote its
decline, the government will fall, but it also wants to continue to do the
reforms that Italy urgently needs. I really do not understand what is going on.
Strangely, I’m thinking about the theories of Malthus of a couple of centuries
ago. I think the Malthusian catastrophe, wrong because it believed impossible to
produce enough food for a growing population, now returns valid because it is
becoming increasingly difficult to find work for the immense and ever-increasing
number of unemployed people worldwide.
When I was about forty years old in Australia, I wrote a letter to an Australian
parliamentary asking him to suggest to whom is responsible, the Onu, to
distribute to all the poor girls from age twelve, in Africa and other poor
regions of the world, a few dollars a month, until the day of their first
pregnancy. The gentleman, perhaps outraged, never responded.
However I still think that if something like that had been done fifty years ago,
many problems of today’s world would be more easily solved.
In Italy it is naive to think that, even if a strong recovery in industrial and
economic activities would happen, would be possible to occupy the hordes of
unemployed, especially the young and the many migrants who flock to our shores.
There is no unemployment benefits that takes. The future of any government of
broad agreements or not, is uncertain and very difficult. The problems are huge
and it does not seem that there are plausible solutions.
03/09/2013
XIX - Floor tiles
While working in the factory I met, in the block
of flats where I lived, a Maltese chap who spoke a little Italian. Enough to
establish a conversation. He was an applicator of linoleum tiles in homes,
especially in kitchens, and I had gone a couple of times, during my free
Saturdays, to help him in his work. So I had learned , where to buy tiles, glue,
masonite, to be fixed on the wooden floors, and on which to hang the tiles .
Now, in Sydney, most of the fruit and vegetable shops were run by
Italians . Every Saturday morning I went into one of these stores and began to
praise the owner for the exposure of its fruit, asserting that it was a wonder
to me, absolutely superior to the exposure of fruit in Italy, however, I used to
point out that the wooden floor was terrible in comparison and I showed a
few tiles of linoleum that I had in a bag.
The reaction was usually the same: “Yes, but who knows how much
this would cost!”
“I’ll tell you right now!” I replied , and after measuring the
area of the shop, I presented the cost , always among thirty, and never over
forty pounds.
“That would be fine”, they usually said, “but we are open every
day”.
“No problem”, I repeated, “if you give me the shop at the end of
Saturday night you can re-open at nine or, at most, ten o’clock the following
Sunday”.
Closed the deal, I proposed, to one of the guys who worked in the
same store, to give him five pounds for a night of work with me to cover the
floor. Normally they accepted and I, except the cost of the material, which was
between nine and twelve pounds, plus five for the help, I could earn at least
fifteen pounds for one night of very hard work.
Consider that in the factory I
was earning only seven pounds a week.
04/09/2013
XX - The chess player
I have always been an avid chess player. I
started playing when I was about eighteen. A classmate of mine in elementary
school, who had been studying in a religious school, wanted to teach me to play
chess. He was not very good at it, but loved this game immensely. When he was
teaching me the moves of all the pieces, usually he played with me without the
queen.
After a few weeks I was winning him even at equal pieces. Then the
Bronte's Circle of Culture had shifted in a building in front of the Capizzi
college and was called Public Employment.
There were then many members who luved to play chess. I remember
the brothers Guastella, the Santangelo, Professor Lupo, Dr. Ponzo and many
others. Until our departure for Australia Nunzio Ponzo I and were the best
players.
When I decided to return to Italy to stay, I thought I could find
here a lot of people to play with, but at the Cultural Circle of Bronte they
play only cards. When they elected me President of the Club, I tried to revive
the desire to engage in this game that is definitely much more intelligent of
trump or broom cards. For this I even purchased five new large chessboards and
chess sets.
But it did not work. Most of the members of this club don’t like
to play chess even if they know the game, as it requires too much concentration.
Only two of the members, the bar manager Nino and the current
president, architect, play chess with me. Especially the Nino, who has played
with me for many years now, and has reached a level almost similar to mine. And
the president, who plays a lot with him, and has reached, more or less, the same
level.
5/9/2013
XXI - Pendle Hill
After about two years of residence in Sydney I began to understand what
people were saying and I could express myself in a just understandable English.
My mother used to write to me often: “If you have'nt enough money for a ticket
to return home we shall pay it from here.” But for me it was not a question of money, as I had already earned a lot. My
English was still inadequate and I was determined to really learn it.
Among my Italian friends that I used to see, there was a certain Peter G., a
builder who was not successful in his trade for his many vices. He had a
contract to do renovations to a convent of Italian Franciscan monks in Pendly
Hill, a suburb quite far from the center of Sydney. He suggested to me to go there as supervisor of his workers, offering me a wage
adequate to the service.
In the convent, the superior was a young monk, few years older than me. We soon
became good friends and, in my free time, I painted for him some pictures of
sacred images.
I also informed him that I was a non-believer but this did not affect our
friendship at all, in fact he told me to have had many doubts himself before
accepting the priesthood. However, he had managed to keep the faith through
prayer.
The work went very slowly due to lack of materials. The manager used to send me
masons without the bricks. A huge disorganization.
In Sydney I had met a beautiful girl to whom I proposed to get engaged with a
phone call from Pendle Hill, and in the end it was just my friend Franciscan
monk to marry us a few months later.
6/9/213
XXII - The “Di Bella Constructions Pty. Ltd.”
Now I'll tell you how I became a builder of houses and apartments in
Australia. Towards the end of the year, 1954, that is, when I was already
married, with all the various trades that I had done up to that time, I had
accumulated enough money to buy a house, in one of the better suburbs, that was
in very poor condition. I knew two Italian guys, one from Messina that could do
a bit of everything in construction work, and a Tuscan, who specialized in all
types of plaster. With the two of them, and my help as designer and laborer, we managed to make of
this house a comfortable and very attractive home. At that time I was producing
and selling fluorescent lamps and acrylic neon signs, but these two guys asked
me to form a partnership specialized in renovations of existing building that
required to be modernized. My job was to get the jobs and provide all the necessary equipment and
materials, while they would carry out the work. It worked well for a while and
we renewed many homes and buildings mostly belonging to Italians. One day, as we
were giving the final touches to a very nice house, in a suburb called Mascot,
out of a huge Mercedes Benz comes a distinct Australian gentleman. He was very
tall. I arrived just above his navel. He asks, “Who is the boss here?” I walked a bit intimidated and said: “You can talk to me if you want, what can I
do for you?” - “You have done a great job of this house. Who was the architect?” - “Actually, for this house we did not hire an architect. We did everything by
ourselves”. - “Congratulations!” - he said - “I knew in what a terrible state this building
was. Congratulations indeed. I would like to show you a house that I'm thinking
of buying. Could yo spend half hour with me and give me your opinion?” - “Of course”, I replied, and he made me enter on his big car and headed toward
Vaucluse, the most elegant and exclusive suburb of Sydney. The house of which he had spoken to me was, in fact, a sumptuous villa in the
middle of a large garden with wonderful views over the bay of Sydney. The
building was noble but in very poor condition. He told me that the asking price
for it was 25,000 sterlings. I, not having the slightest idea of the value of
the property, advised him to offer them 22,000 and gave him my address and my
phone number. After a few days, he, very excited and happy, told me that the offer had been
accepted and that he wanted me to undertake the renewal of the villa. I did not
know which way to turn. I did not believe to be able to complete a job as
challenging as that. I told him that there was still need an architect. He
replied that he had total confidence in me and I could do whatever I thought
necessary. Since my partners did not speak or understand English, I had to use an Italian
carpenter, for many years in Australia, who could also serve as foreman. My
partners did not like this situation, and after a week they told me that they
preferred to work only for Italian customers.
Thus, I had to liquidate the partnership with them, and founded, with my wife
and my first child already born, a new company called: Di Bella Constructions
Pty. Ltd.
7/9/2013
XXIII - Fred Fitzpatrick
The gentleman to whom I had renovated the villa in Vaucluse was called Fred
Fitzpatrick. Not only was he very happy with the result of our work, but had
also become one of my best friends and, for the most part, the purveyorr of
countless other jobs that I obtained through its recommendations.
On the cost of the renewal of his villa I, in agreement with him, was adding 10%
for my company, as well as the salary for my personal contribution to the work.
I remember that when the work was completed, there remained a balance of 300
sterlings he owed me. He asked me if he could give me that amount in cash, I
said yes and he began to count the money with ten pounds notes and while he
counted, was going from one hundred and eighty to one hundred and ten, and so
on.
When he had put on the table five hundred sterlings instead of three hundred I
said, “Fred , you’re making a mistake, these are five instead of three hundred
sterlings”.
He began to laugh and said, “No, I am not making any mistakes”. “I'm very happy
for the great work you have done and I want you, with these two hundred
sterlings , to have a party for your employees”.
Without any doubt, my encounter with this gentleman was at the root of my
success in the construction industry. After the renewal of his villa in Vaucluse,
followed renovations to some of his men's fashion stores, spread out over many
suburbs of Sydney and the construction of my first block of six apartments.
7/9/2013
XXIV – The decline of cav
Tomorrow the junta of the Senate is expected to vote the probable decline of
Berlusconi's political activities. The risk of the fall of the government Letta,
as a result of this vote, is real but I do not think this will happen.
The consequences would be disastrous. Without any doubt, the hardest part of the
PD wants to get rid of Senator Berlusconi, as soon as possible, but I believe
that many senators of the Democratic Party, those not antiberlusconians par
excellence, will think twice before voting on his decline that could have deadly
consequences in the interest of Italy.
Right now, while you begin to see some tentative signs of
recovery, our beloved Italy could fall into the chaos and uncertainty of a few
weeks ago. All for the sake of revenge. Some members of the left refuse to
accept a peace between the two major parties, which could really solve the
problems facing Italy since many years.
Surely Berlusconi is not a saint, as the majority of
Italians. The full-blown virtue of the working or collar class not to evade
taxes depends solely on the fact that it is impossible for them to do so, not
because they would not have the desire.
The cav.
Berlusconi is a man of exceptional ability. But it is also a man who, perhaps
unwittingly arouses in people who listen to him great support, up to an
inexplicable adoration and equally large dislikes that can generate a hate
absolutely gutted and without any reason. So many people want him even dead, but
if you ask them why they hate him so much, they cannot give a valid and
convincing reason. The same applies to those who worship him without any
plausible answers.
At the head of the government I prefer a guy like Enrico Letta. He is a
moderate. Has competence without the complications of the charismatic leaders
who often create deep sympathies or antipathies, responsible for most hateful
divisions of people.
8/9/2013 (it
follows)
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