Legacy of Sorrows (3 page)

He entered the barrack room where his unit was billeted and called his men to attention. There was a flurry of activity as they stood by their beds. Looking around the room he made sure he had the men's attention before speaking ‘Soldiers of the Führer, we have been assigned a mission on Monte Sole early tomorrow morning. We have been tasked with clearing the area of Italian criminals, so let's have an early night as we leave at 0400 hours tomorrow. The order has come from the Field Marshall himself and he expects all of us to do our duty. We all know the danger these criminals pose so we will completely clear the area of them and their supporters. I want you all now to quickly check your weapons and replenish with sufficient ammunition and grenades for the work ahead.
Heil Hitler!
' His men responded by shouting out in return the Führer's name whilst standing rigidly to attention. A very pleased Sergeant Kuller turned and left the barracks, ‘I don't have to worry about any of these men. They will all do their duty without hesitation.'

Chapter 3

A
s
the first glint of the new day began to colour the edges of the dawn sky, I rose to leave for my Aunt's farm. I kept any noise down to a minimum to prevent wakening the rest of the family, so I walked around the kitchen barefooted. I had left my boots outside the front door and would put them on as I left the house.

Picking up a newly sharpened knife my father had brought in from his workshop, I cut off some cheese from the block Mamma kept in the larder; it was
pecorino
, my favourite, made with the milk from our own sheep. Crossing the kitchen to the breadboard I picked up a slice of fresh bread that Mamma had made just last night. I could still smell the freshness from it as I took a bite. I ate my breakfast in a hurry as I had to be at the farm for 5am to start the milking and it was now 4.30am. It would take me fifteen minutes to walk there and I didn't want to be late.

I quietly opened the outside door and slipped through it, carefully closed the door behind me and then put on my boots. I then made my way down the well-worn path to Aunt Lisa's farm.

After a few minutes walking I came to a bend in the path with open views down the valley, and looking down the slope I could see in the near distance smoke rising up from some of the hamlets further down the mountain. I held my gaze on the smoke and thought I could see what looked like small fires dotted around the area. “Must be the farmers burning vegetation and dead trees gathered from their ground clearances” I thought, and moved on down the path. I always enjoyed the early morning on the mountain, with the sound of birds and the noise of wild boar in the nearby undergrowth for company as I walked along.

Then, a new sound came to my ears. It was the sound of automatic gunfire and shrill screams rising up from the valley floor. I stopped and listened. There it was again, I wasn't mistaken, it could only be the Germans. I ran as fast as he could down the path to Aunt Lisa's farm, oblivious to everything but reaching my family to warn them of impending danger.

After what seemed a lifetime I came to a fork in the path, the left trail led to the farm. I paused for a second to catch my breath before running on. Just then, through the trees, I caught sight of some men in military uniform just ahead of me. I jumped into the undergrowth out of sight and cautiously crawled closer to the farmhouse.

The sight that met me chilled my whole being. Uncle Luigi was tied in a kneeling position on the ground with his throat cut. The soldiers had obviously made him watch as they raped his wife in front of him. His hands were tied behind his back by a rope. A wooden stake was attached to the rope and was tied behind his head, forcing it back to look over in his wife's direction.

Aunt Lisa was lying on the ground in front of him completely naked. Her stomach was cut from her chest down to her groin, and what appeared to be her baby was lying on the ground beside her. The soldiers had raped her and then cut her unborn child from her womb before leaving her to bleed to death. My cousin Moreno, who was twelve years old, was also lying dead. He had been shot through the back of his head.

I felt the bile rise in my throat. My stomach was churning at the awful sight before me. I fought hard to stop myself vomiting in case the soldiers heard me and came for me as well.

The soldiers were now busy torching the farmhouse, so I took the opportunity to crawl backwards through the undergrowth until I reached the main path again.

My mind raced. What now? I must warn Mamma and Papà, and I ran blindly up the path towards my home.

As I reached the bend in the path again I stopped for a moment. The fires I had seen earlier were now spreading along the valley floor in all directions. Smoke was rising like lazy plumes in the sky, drifting with the wind. My senses were all alert now. I could see men moving below me, and I could clearly hear the sound of automatic fire coming ever closer. The screams of the villagers were almost drowned out with the booming sound of grenades, or was that mortars? I turned to run up the path again, but stopped when I heard the sound of a vehicle coming towards me. I panicked, thinking “What should I do?” I jumped out of sight into the undergrowth growing along the edge of the mountainside once more. The sight of a German Army truck meandering up the path came into view. The canvas cover was down and I could see about a dozen soldiers inside chatting to each other quite normally. I could clearly make out their insignia; a skull - it was the SS. Even though I had never seen an SS soldier before, all the young boys in my school knew what their insignia was.

I wished at that moment that I had a weapon to shoot them with. Then the thought came to me that the next house they would pass on the way to Marzabotto was mine.

After the truck had driven past, I came out of the undergrowth and made a dash for the side of the mountain. I knew of a shortcut over the hillside that I could use to save time, and perhaps get to my home before the Germans did. All I could think of was to warn my family of the danger.

I frantically climbed higher until I came across the path through the undergrowth. I ran as fast as I could along it, with tears blinding my eyes as I stumbled and fell along the way. Although my heart was pounding like a piston in my chest, I refused to slow down. Eventually, I could see the chimney stacks of my home just ahead.

I pulled up sharply when I heard the sound of an explosion that seemed to fill the air, followed by automatic gunfire and what seemed like screaming. I ran forward at a crouch, hoping that no one would spot me while I was looking down on the house from the hills above.

My father was fighting a tall, blonde soldier who was wearing the uniform of an SS Sergeant who was gaining the upper hand. Papà was trying to hit him on the head with a rock he had picked up from the courtyard, but the blonde giant had pushed him away and thrown him to the ground. As Papà tried to get up the SS Sergeant stood over him, pulled out his sidearm and shot him twice in the body. I cried with horror as I saw blood pump out of my father's chest in what seemed to be a never-ending scarlet flow.

The sound of shouting from the house drew my attention. I turned my head towards the source just in time to see an SS soldier forcing my three brothers into our house at gunpoint. When they were inside, he shut the door, then threw a grenade through the open window. It exploded a few seconds later with a deafening booming noise and immediately set the house ablaze. As the flames reached the roof, fanned by the light wind, the soldier kicked in the door and sprayed the interior of the house with a few bursts of automatic gunfire, with the obvious intention of finishing off anyone still left alive.

Tears filled my eyes and I found it hard to breathe as I took in the dreadful scene unfolding before me.

Suddenly, I heard my
mamma
's voice shouting from behind the house; terrified screams, such as I had never heard from her before. Different men's voices were also shouting things at the top of their voices in a foreign language and Mamma was screaming ‘Stop! Stop! You're hurting me!'

I crawled slowly through the undergrowth in the direction of the shouting until I reached a safe position facing the back of the house, where I didn't think anyone would see me. The sight I saw there remains with me to this day. Four SS men had stripped my mother of all her clothing and she was struggling in vain to fight them off. They were holding her down on the ground and were taking it in turns to repeatedly rape her. I still feel an overwhelming guilt that I didn't try to help her. But what could I have achieved against heavily armed soldiers?

Eventually the tall blonde SS Sergeant came over and joined them in the rape as the other four stood back laughing as they watched. When he had satisfied himself, the SS Sergeant pulled out his bayonet and slit my mother's throat. I watched her lifeblood ebb away into the brown earth, turning it red. He then dipped his bayonet in my mother's blood and wrote something on the ground. A chill filled my whole body and paralysed me with fear. I felt an indescribable anger choking me as I tried to tear my eyes away from the horror scene before me, but I was unable to do so.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed before the soldiers left, but I was still there, lying in the long grass just staring through my tears at my mother's body, when the thought came to me ‘Lisa! Where is she?” I raised my head and looked around me to see if the SS had left anyone behind, and seeing no one there I ran to the smouldering ruin of what was left of my house. I slowly entered and tried not to look at the carnage of what was left of my brothers' bodies. I frantically searched around and finally my eyes fell on a sad looking pink bundle in the kitchen sink. It looked like the same colour of pink as Lisa's dress. I walked over and recognised the dead body of my baby sister lying there with a bullet hole in her head. She had been crammed into the sink and then shot. What kinds of monsters were these
tedeschi
? Slowly, I reached over her small dead body and removed her gold chain and pendant from her little neck and put it in my pocket. I don't know why I took it, perhaps as a keepsake. To this day I'm still not sure, although I did find it helpful in later life.

I looked round at the scene of devastation that had been my home, filled with a sense of complete desolation and loss. I fell to my knees and screamed out at the top of my lungs again and again until I lost my voice and could scream no more. I felt the bile rise from my stomach and I spewed out a stream of vomit on Mamma's once clean kitchen floor. I lay on the cool tiles for a long time, not daring to move. I didn't want to leave the house. Where could I go to, anyway? My precious family were all dead, but as long as I was there, I didn't have to accept that fact.

Darkness began to creep over the mountain and it found me still lying there on the kitchen floor, still crying. Hours had passed by, but they had made no impression on me. Was I in a dream? Had it really happened?

It was like watching a film on a cinema screen and I was the principal actor. Nothing seemed real. How could such horror be a part of life and not belong to a nightmare? How could anyone cope with seeing such things and remain sane? I thought “I will survive this; I will overcome this horror and survive. One day I will avenge my family. As for the blonde one: I will find him and I will kill him.”

I realised that I had to do something to come out of this dream-like state. Unsteadily, I stood up and walked over to the breadboard, lifted two loaves and put them in a bag. I then took a wedge of the Pecorino cheese and some salami and did the same with them. Mamma always had homemade lemonade in the larder, so I put a couple of bottles in my pack and left the house, taking care not to look at the dead bodies of my sibling lying in the ruins and growing cold. I paused outside for a few moments, said a prayer over my parents' bodies and read what the blonde killer had written on the ground in my mother's blood. Then I prayed for the souls of my siblings lying dead in the house before moving on. I vowed never to return to the house or Monte Sole ever again.

Chapter 4

H
aving
nowhere else to go, I returned to my hiding place on the hillside. I just couldn't tear myself away from the place no matter how much I wanted to and I couldn't think where else to go. The events of the day had exhausted me, so I sat down on the warm ground and tried to plan what to do next.

Feeling somewhat hungry, I ate a little of the food I had brought with me and before too long my eyes felt very heavy and I fell asleep.

It was a silly thing to do. No sooner had I done so than I was awakened by a terrible nightmare. I tried to sleep again but the nightmares were always there. They always had the central figure of a tall, blonde-haired man, standing laughing over my family. I realised that I had to move away from the house, but I wasn't sure where to go. I picked up my meagre belongings and turned away from the scene of my hellish nightmare, and in the black mountain night I walked down the path I knew so well and headed for the village of Marzabotto. I felt I just needed contact with other people that I knew.

Usually, at this time of night, the village would have been asleep, however tonight there were people gathered in small groups all over the main street. I saw my father's friend Pietro talking to some people and I ran over to him. I grabbed him round the waist and let my tears erupt in loud sobbing cries. Pietro reached down and lifted me up in his arms. ‘Bruno, what's wrong? Where are your parents?