{"id":10379,"date":"2015-11-10T15:00:34","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T14:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=10379"},"modified":"2019-04-10T16:48:17","modified_gmt":"2019-04-10T14:48:17","slug":"my-fathers-war-part-4-pow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/my-fathers-war-part-4-pow\/","title":{"rendered":"My Father’s War – Part 4 – POW"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 3 of my father’s memories ended with his arrival at a French POW camp in Marrakesh, Morocco, in June 1943. Here are some of his recollections from the three years he spent as a POW in North Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n

Links to previous chapters:<\/p>\n

Chapter 1<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter 2<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter 3<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>

My father (top right) as a POW in North Africa.<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

C\u2019\u00e8 un episodio che mi ricordo con grande piacere. Quando eravamo a Marrakech mi avevano messo in una squadra di lavoro: la mattina, dopo la conta, uscivamo e andavamo a spazzare le strade e le piazze della citt\u00e0. I cittadini, specialmente le donne, avevano piet\u00e0 di noi e ci allungavano qualcosa da mangiare, un pezzo di pane, un po\u2019 di latte, ecc. Una mattina invece ci hanno mandato al cimitero militare di Marrakech, perch\u00e9 il guardiano aveva chiesto dei lavoratori per risistemare il cimitero per il 2 novembre, giorno dei morti<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

There’s one episode that I always like to remember. When we were at Marrakesh they had put me in a work team: in the morning, after the head count, we went out and swept the streets and squares of the town. The citizens, especially the women, felt sorry for us and passed us something to eat, a piece of bread, a drop of milk, etc. One morning though, they sent me to the Marrakesh military cemetery, because the warden had asked for some workers to help clean up the cemetery for the 2nd of November, All Souls’ Day.<\/p>\n

Io ero l\u2019unico della squadra di prigionieri, in tutto una quindicina, che parlava un po\u2019 di francese, per cui il guardiano si rivolgeva sempre a me:<\/strong>
\n Guardiano: \u201cMonsieur Nicol\u00e0!\u201d<\/strong>
\n Io: \u201cComandi!\u201d<\/strong>
\n Guardiano: \u201cBisogna riverniciare e riscrivere i nomi sulle croci di legno\u201d<\/strong>
\n Io: \u201cCi penso io. Lei mi procuri della vernice nera e della vernice bianca, e dei pennelli di varie misure, al resto ci penso io\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was the only one of the prison squad, there were about 15 of us in total, who spoke a bit of French, so the warden always addressed me:
\nWarden: \u201cMr. Nicola!\u201d
\nMe: \u201cAt your command!\u201d
\nWarden: \u201cThe wooden crosses need repainting and the name rewriting\u201d
\nMe: \u201cI’ll sort it out myself. You get me some black and white paint, and various sized brushes, I’ll sort the rest out\u201d<\/p>\n

Mentre gli altri rimettevano a posto i tumuli, io copiavo il nome su un foglio, poi passavo una mano di vernice nera sulla croce, e quindi con la vernice bianca e un pennello sottile riscrivevo il nome in bella calligrafia. Il guardiano \u00e8 rimasto molto contento del mio lavoro e mi ha chiesto: \u201cCosa facevi prima della guerra? Il pittore?\u201d \u201cS\u00ec\u201d gli ho risposto per farlo contento.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whilst the other sorted out the grave mounds, I copied the names onto a sheet of paper, then I gave the cross a coat of black paint, after which I rewrote the name in a nice script in white paint with a fine brush. The warden was very happy with my work and asked me: \u201cWhat did you do before the war? Were you a painter?\u201d \u201cYes\u201d I replied, to keep him happy.<\/p>\n

Un giorno \u00e8 caduto un aereo francese e al cimitero hanno portato un morto, era un infermiere. Ho ricopiato il suo distintivo da infermiere e l’ho riprodotto sulla tomba con delle pietre colorate. Quando la vedova ha visto la tomba si \u00e8 commossa e ha voluto ricompensarci per il lavoro fatto. Il guardiano del cimitero le ha suggerito di darci qualcosa da mangiare, e cos\u00ec la mattina dopo ci ha portato del pane, delle scatole di tonno e del vino.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One day a French aircraft crashed, and they brought a dead person to the cemetery, it was a nurse. I copied his nurse’s badge and reproduced it on the grave using coloured stones. When the widow saw the grave she was moved, and wanted to pay us for the work we’d done. The cemetery warden suggested giving us something to eat, and so the following morning she brought us some bread, some tins of tuna and some wine.<\/p>\n

Sadly, my father passed away a few days ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

RIP Nicola Cricorian, 6th May 1921\u00a0\u2013 28th October 2015<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Chapter 3 of my father’s memories ended with his arrival at a French POW camp in Marrakesh, Morocco, in June 1943. Here are some of his recollections from the three years he spent as a POW in North Africa. Links to previous chapters: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 C\u2019\u00e8 un episodio che mi ricordo…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":10385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[385864,385939],"class_list":["post-10379","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-wwii-in-north-africa","tag-wwii-italian-pow-in-north-africa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10379"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18056,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10379\/revisions\/18056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}