KZ GUSEN MEMORIAL COMMITTEE
within ARBEITSKREIS FUER HEIMAT-, DENKMAL- UND GESCHICHTSPFLEGE (AHDG)
and Local-International Platform ST. GEORGEN/GUSEN, Austria
KZ Mauthausen-GUSEN Info-Pages
Local-International Commemoration
May 5-7, 2000
Speech of Mr. Angelo Signorelli,
Italian Survivor of KZ Gusen I
May 1945 - May 2000
55 years have passed since the unforgettable day of our liberation.
We few survivors and relatives of victims are here to commemorate both,
the immense joy of those days, as well as the bitterness we feel about the deaths
of so many comrades and friends after unspeakable suffering.
Let`s observe a minute`s silence in their memory.
I was deported in March 1944 together with my brother Giuseppe.
We were arrested at home in the dead of night because for eight days we had been
taking part in workers` strikes in the factory where we worked to protest against
our misery and for the end of the war. We did not want to obey the Fascists and the
Nazis any more, and we wanted peace.
After five years of war Italy was in misery, her towns destroyed by bombs.
The strike had been organised secretly and the whole north of our country
as well as the big factories of Sesto San Giovanni were taking part in it:
Falck (where my brother and I were working), Breda, Pirelli, Marelli interrupted
their production.
The retaliation of the Fascists was terrible: they arrested us and handed us over to the Nazis,
who in sealed railway carriages deported us into their concentration camps.
They made us pay for our desire for freedom in an inhuman way.
I arrived at Mauthausen on March 20, 1944 and after four days was shipped on to
Gusen, where I stayed until liberation. I was 17 and my juvenile age saved me.
I worked in the stone quarries of Gusen I and would not have made it any longer,
had a prisoner from the registration office not taken me away from this work detail,
as he found me much too young for that kind of work. Later, together with other youngsters,
I worked in the potato detail and took care of the Angora rabbits.
Three times I was in the sickness bay from where one normally did not get out again
alive, but miraculously I made it three times.
Gusen was destined to be a grave for Italian prisoners, at least 1650 Italians died there
and the death toll of Sesto San Giovanni in Gusen I and II runs into 94.
After the Jews and the Russians we Italians were the least popular among the Capos,
as after September 8, 1943 Italy had formed an alliance with the USA.
With the utmost contempt they called us "Macaroni" and "Shit".
They beat us and did not allow us to write to our relatives back home or receive any mail
from there. They took our names away from us and gave us numbers instead.
Slaves like us were not allowed to look into the eyes of those who commanded us.
Violence against us and around us was daily habit. However, the Nazis did not succeed
in taking away our human emotions: I saw and took part in acts of solidarity and support
for comrades who were suffering next to us.
During all the months of my deportation I always nourished the hope to be able
to return home one day. However, the experience I had there first-hand has engraved
on my whole life.
In the name of the A.N.E.D. (the National League of Italian Political Ex-Deportees in
NS-Concentration Camps) I would like to thank all the participants of our pilgrimage
as well as the population of this village who are present for sharing the memories
of the terrible tragedy that took place here.
Angelo Signorelli (Translation: Siegi Witzany-Durda)
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Most recent updates of this page were made on
000711 by Rudolf A. HAUNSCHMIED,
Martha Gammer, Siegi Witzany-Durda and
Jan-Ruth White with her students in US-Alabama