{"id":2567,"date":"2016-08-08T21:46:52","date_gmt":"2016-08-09T01:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/strathroycaradoclions.ca\/?page_id=2567"},"modified":"2022-05-03T22:41:40","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T02:41:40","slug":"a-taste-of-war","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rememberourvets.ca\/index.php\/strathroy-cemeteries\/world-war-ii-stories-life-world-war\/a-taste-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"“A Taste of War”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Taste of War by Rene Natan<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

Milan, Italy <\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n

October 12, 1942<\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
It was going to be an exciting day. The <\/span>Banca<\/span>d\u2019America<\/span> e <\/span>d\u2019Italia<\/span>, housed in a big building in downtown Milano, had organized a party for the employees\u2019 children, and my sister, Luisa and I were invited because my aunt worked there. I remember little about the party, except that I was wearing a nice dress and a pink-purple coat, and that I received a pin with a pendant: a transparent cube with the bank\u2019s name engraved on it. <\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
Around five o\u2019clock the sirens filled the air, alerting the population of an incumbent air strike, and everybody at the bank rushed down the stairs and entered a bunker, hoping the sirens would soon signal the end of danger. There had been many alarms before, each launched as soon as alien planes violated our airspace, but until yesterday those incursions had been classified as reconnaissance missions. Yesterday, however, there had been a tragic attack: the town of Brescia, about 65 kilometres from Milano, had been bombed severely, and the fires had not been extinguished yet, 20 hours after the fact. The end-of-danger signal never came; instead the roar of raiding bombers filtered through the heavy walls of the bank. Milano was suffering its first bombing of World War II\u2014not the last, though.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
That night, my sister and I went to the bank guardian\u2019s apartment and shared the bed with his daughter. My mother, who had accompanied us, and my aunt headed home.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
During the attack my father had taken shelter in the bunker of the Railway Central Station, where his office was located. The raid over, he had headed home on foot, horrified by the damage that the 30-minute bombing had done. We lived in my grandmother\u2019s house, situated at the corner of via G.B. <\/span>Niccolini<\/span> and via A. <\/span>Fioravante<\/span>. The two-story house, which sported a big <\/span>terrace and a small garden, crouched its 2,300 square-feet of space against one of the buildings that took up all of the remaining street block. Unknown to <\/span>us and our neighbours, these buildings, well guarded from intruders,<\/span> were the headquarters of a chemical company that produced explosives. The entire block was an ideal target for enemy fire.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
When my father approached the house from the end of via <\/span>Fioravante<\/span>, smoke was coming out of the house. As he got closer, he recognized that the smoke was fanning out of his children\u2019s room. I remembered him describing his shock as he said, \u201cThe girls! Oh my God, that is their room! They would be playing there this time of the afternoon!\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
As he turned the corner, he found my grandmother, age 78, out in the street as neighbours and friends helped her move out all the furniture that was on the main floor. She had been alone at the time of the air strike, sitting in the family room on the first floor, opposite the children\u2019s room, which was located on the second. She reassured my father that the rest of the family had not been inside the house at the time of the attack.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
My father spent a few hours putting out the fire using a garden hose. There was no hope for the firefighters to come any soon. Some were busy in another part of the city; others were still in Brescia helping the wounded. Around seven-thirty, Mr. Della <\/span>Chiesa<\/span>, a man whom we later found out to belong to the Italian Resistance, stopped helping my father and said, \u201cTime to take shelter. They\u2019re coming back. This was a scouting round. They used incendiary bombs<\/span>1<\/span> to mark the contour of the city to help them see the target in the dark. They\u2019ll come back with explosive bombs tonight, when the anti-air units won\u2019t be able to spot them easily.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
The British air force had used that strategy successfully in previous raids.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
Punctually, around eight o\u2019clock, the bombers with their explosive cargo came.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
And Luisa and I went down to the bunker again.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
The following day my sister and I joined the rest of the family: that is, my parents, my aunt and my grandmother. My sister hopped and danced around, happy that everybody was alive and well. I still remember the pin fastened to my coat collar with the pendant hanging down on a thin chain, and my mother trying to button up my previous-year coat. She said, \u201cThis coat is now too small for you.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
I escaped supervision and wandered around, as curious a child as any. There was water in the room underneath what used to be my and my sister\u2019s living quarters and there was no ceiling; a truss leaned at an angle in a corner. I looked up and saw nothing but grey sky. Our room was no more.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
Our room\u2026 its furniture consisted of two beds, a bookcase, a fancy dresser with wood inlays of different colours, a tall armoire and a lot of toys. In a corner lay a construction set, a puppet theatre (my dad was the entertaining puppeteer), and 12 dolls: eight belonged to my sister and four to me. Of course I played with any of them, except for the big porcelain baby that opened and closed its eyes and had a little crib of its own. That I could only hold if properly supervised.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
So I wandered around a bit more, trying to figure out what had happened. Then I heard my mother say, \u201cWe have to think about the girls. We should get them some clean underwear.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
I looked up. I remember <\/span>thinking,<\/span>Grown-ups don\u2019t have a sense of what it\u2019s important. There are no more dolls, no more toys. I can\u2019t even find my teddy bear.<\/span> I was eight at the time and occasionally I hugged him tight to help me fall asleep. <\/span>And what do they think about? Underwear!<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
Before and After<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
One day, at the beginning of the war, a friend of the family had come to visit us and wanted to talk to my mother privately. I never <\/span>knew what she told my mother until years later. Apparently, during a previous visit, I had tapped on a picture shown on the front page of the <\/span>Corriere<\/span>della<\/span> Sera<\/span>, our local newspaper, and solemnly declared, \u201cThis is the man my mother hates.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
That man was Adolf Hitler.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
My parents didn\u2019t lose any time. From that evening on, when they wanted to discuss politics or talk about the secretive news that transpired concerning the persecution of the Jews, they sent us to our room. We could play there before going to bed, but no coming down for any reason. <\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
In the war years my parents played a wonderful role in sheltering us from an external world that was hostile to us and, after the loss of our house, even more openly so. In his career, Father had been denied any promotion because of his jovial way of telling jokes about Mussolini, and he had been transferred more than once for his views against the ruling party.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
Six months after the bombing we moved from my uncle\u2019s place to an apartment owned by the Railways Company. The six-apartment dwelling\u2014a bulky, L-shape construction painted a bright yellow\u2014wasn\u2019t a striking beauty of architecture, but it was located in one of the loveliest Italian towns: <\/span>Stresa<\/span>, on the shores of <\/span>Lago<\/span> Maggiore.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
Five of the six apartments were occupied by families whose men worked at the Railways Company and were loyal to the regime; they had left the city, even if their houses had not been destroyed, to avoid the bombardments, which had become more frequent every passing day. The targets were no longer limited to strategic buildings or military objectives. All means of transport and communication\u2014bridges, trains, boats, rails, roads, even simple trucks\u2014were bombed almost daily in raids carried out by the Allies\u2019 air forces. <\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
The food was limited to what we could buy with the coupons issued by the government. I was permanently hungry; the milk we bought was often watered down; sometimes my mother would <\/span>make several trips to the store, only to be told that the amount of food guaranteed by the government hadn\u2019t arrived or had been sold out; there was no butter or oil and only a small amount of sugar. The black market flourished. To add insult to injury, often the wonderful aroma of freshly baked cakes wafted out of the kitchen window of one of our neighbours. They had plenty of everything.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
But what I remember as one of the worst results of the war was not the loss of my toys or being hungry or even the loss of my wonderful home and the feeling of being safe, a feeling I had enjoyed for years. The worst result of the war <\/span>was having<\/span> to swing between two different worlds both at school and in the courtyard. To do that, I had to learn to curtail the truth and, at times, to resort to a flat lie. That was the worst thing. My father listened to Radio <\/span>Londra<\/span>, the opening notes of Beethoven\u2019s fifth symphony almost defining mankind\u2019s destiny, which was very much in doubt as the war\u2019s successes swung dangerously from one side to the other. I was told if I were asked about this issue I should deny that he did, the consequence being my father\u2019s deportation. In any case I was told to talk little, to answer politely but curtly, possibly with a mumbled, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
One day my mother met with our floor neighbour, Ms. <\/span>Rocchetti<\/span>, the daughter and sister of two men committed to the regime. <\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
\u201cI met your youngest girl,\u201d she said to my mother. \u201cSo pretty. Too bad she\u2019s\u2014\u201d She stopped, and my mother invited her to continue. \u201cWell, it\u2019s too bad she doesn\u2019t talk.\u201d As my mother gave her an inquisitive look, she added, \u201cShe\u2019s mute, isn\u2019t she?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
As a little girl I was very much alive: I always engaged people around me in conversation; I read a lot and liked to recount the plot of my recent reading to my schoolmates at recess time or any other time when talking was tolerated if not encouraged; and I bonded with people easily. In other words, I interacted with people of my age as much as I could and\u2026 well, I talked a lot. <\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
I wonder whether my mother and my teachers ever wished I <\/span>was<\/span> mute\u2014at least sometimes. <\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
The End<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
1<\/span> An incendiary bomb (normally filled with thermite) explodes in mid-air, releasing firing segments whose flames overcome air resistance. In their descent they ignite any flammable objects they encounter.<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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