Teresa’s son was one of the many Italian Military Internees (IMI), the Italian soldiers who, after the armistice of 8 September 1943, refused to side with the Republic of Salò and Hitler and were subsequently deported to the Third Reich and German-occupied territories where they were forced to work in Nazi labour camps.
When Mamma Teresa learns of her son’s death, she is utterly grief-stricken. But her greatest suffering comes from not knowing where he was buried. It takes her five long years to obtain the necessary documents to travel abroad in search of his grave. But this is just the beginning of her ordeal. Setting off from Bova di Marrara, near Ferrara in northern Italy, she makes her way to Germany, all alone, without knowing a word of German and with very little money. The journey is long and arduous and Teresa records the experience in a diary, producing a unique and exceptional testimony. Decades later, Teresa’s relatives dig out that same diary from an attic and hand it to the author, who thus inherits her memories.
“A memorial to my poor son and to everything that his mamma did for him, because only a mother could do this for her son and I did it out of immense love.”
(From the diary of Mamma Teresa Zerbini née Mascellani)
