Mario Piccioli

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Mario Piccioli at the 63rd International Commemoration on May 17, 2008 at the Ebensee concentration camp cemetery

Mario Piccioli (born June 2, 1926 in Florence ; † August 3, 2010 ) was an Italian survivor of the Mauthausen , Ebensee and Linz III concentration camps .

Childhood and youth

Piccioli grew up in the San Frediano district of Florence, where he lived with his parents and older brother. His family was not influenced by fascism and - in contrast to a large part of the population at the time - never had to go hungry. He attended elementary school up to fifth grade, then worked in various shops.

Arrest and deportation

As a result of the general strike called in Upper and Central Italy , his mother was arrested on March 7, 1944 and taken to the Leopoldine schools in Florence. When Piccioli was looking for her the day after, he, too, was arrested by a fascist.

Although his mother was released, Piccioli and many others arrested were loaded onto trucks and taken to Santa Maria Novella train station. Each to vierzigst they were herded into freight cars, enclosed and sent to the concentration camp at Mauthausen deported , which they reached three days later.

Accompanied by the roar of the SS men, they were forced to walk the five-kilometer walk from the train station to the camp. This was followed by a speech from a German SS officer before they were stripped and completely shaved, disinfected and driven into the showers. Piccioli was assigned prisoner number 57,344.

From Mauthausen to Ebensee and Linz

After the two-week quarantine , which served to exhaust the deportees both mentally and physically, he and other Italian inmates were transferred to the Ebensee concentration camp, a sub-camp of Mauthausen, where huge tunnels were to be built in which rockets were developed and produced should.

Piccioli had to do forced labor in tunnels about a kilometer outside the camp. During the work they were guarded by SS men and trained dogs .

Because of his poor health, he was finally transferred to the Revier , where he was selected for a return to Mauthausen. There, too, Piccioli was sent to a barrack that served as a precinct, and stayed there from July 25 to August 31, 1944.

He was later transferred to the Linz III camp, where the deportees were used in a foundry, in the construction of power plants, for dismantling work and the production of tanks.

Life after liberation

On May 5, 1945 Piccioli was liberated by American troops in Linz . At that time he weighed only 31 kilograms. The Italians were later transferred to a former prison camp, where Piccioli spent about a month.

He finally reached Bolzano by train and finally reached Florence on June 23rd by truck. A month later he took a job in a paper mill. In 1963 he took up a job for the province of Florence, where he was employed until his retirement.

In the last years of his life, Piccioli was a sought-after contemporary witness at schools and universities. He was also president of the ANED ( National Association of Former Political Deportees in Nazi Concentration Camps ) in Florence. Mario Piccioli died on August 3, 2010 in his hometown of Florence.

See also

literature

  • Bruno Confortini (Ed.): Mario Piccioli. Since San Frediano a Mauthausen. Edizioni Comune Network, Florence 2007, ISBN 8889608129 (Italian)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, all information is taken from the book by Bruno Confortini (see "Literature")
  2. ↑ La Repubblica : E 'morto Mario Piccioli ex deportato a Mauthausen , August 4, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Piccioli, Mario
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian survivor of the Mauthausen, Ebensee and Linz III concentration camps
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Florence
DATE OF DEATH August 3, 2010
Place of death Florence