Oral history interview with Ignazio Meleddu

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2019.82.22 | RG Number: RG-90.053.0022

Overview

Interview Summary: Ignazio Meleddu, born on June 22, 1923 in Laconi, Sardinia, Italy, discusses his childhood in Laconi,; attending school 8km away on foot; learning the morse code alphabet as a child from his father's colleague who was a stationmaster; volunteering in 1940; contracting a series of diseases, first malaria and then meningitis; returning home for a license; being in Turin, Italy in the spring of 1941 as part of the 1st military engineering regiment; being sent to Bari, Italy with a few colleagues; not knowing at the time if they would be sent to Africa or the Balkans; being sent in June 1941 to Albania; working as a “marconist” (radio operator because he knew the Morse language very well); being sent to many parts of Albania, Balkans, and Greece; witnessing some violence in Greece at the hands of Fascists; his company's reluctance to continue fighting in September 1943; being considered military internees who had to work in labor camps; avoiding heavy work because of a childhood injury; his work fixing locomotive tachographs; being hospitalized for jaundice; going to the countryside to work on farms; having an excellent relationship with the host family and staying there for a year in the countryside, working hard but also living well; remaining in contact with that family and visiting them in 1968 and 1984; being transferred at the end of the war to Ebensee concentration camp for a few weeks; the Jews in the camp; going on a long train journey from Innsbruck, Austria through the Brenner Pass to Bologna, Italy and then to Naples, Italy; arriving in Cagliari on the morning of July 1, 1945; going to the village Nurallao, where his family was staying; and his reflections on being away from his home for five years.
Interviewee: Ignazio Meleddu
Interviewer: Filippo Petrucci
Date: interview: 2020 April 07
Credit Line: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

Physical Details

Language: Italian
Extent: 1 digital file : MP4.

Rights & Restrictions

Conditions on Access: There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
Conditions on Use: No restrictions on use
Copyright Holder: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Keywords & Subjects

Topical Term: Catholics--Italy. Concentration camp inmates. Farms--Italy. Forced labor. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Men--Personal narratives. World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Albania. World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Balkan Peninsula. World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Greece. World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Italy. World War, 1939-1945--Italy--Cagliari. World War, 1939-1945--Participation, Italian. World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Italian. World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, Italian. World War, 1939-1945--Veterans--Italy.
Geographic Name: Balkan Peninsula. Bari (Italy) Belgrade (Serbia) Bitola (Macedonia) Cagliari (Italy : Province) Cagliari (Italy) Durrës (Albania) Florence (Italy) Greece--History--Occupation, 1941-1944. Innsbruck (Austria) Italy--History--German occupation, 1943-1945. Kosovo (Republic) Laconi (Italy) Linz (Austria) Meana Sardo (Italy) Montenegro. Sardinia (Italy) Tirana (Albania) Zakynthos (Greece)
Personal Name: Meleddu, Ignazio.
Corporate Name: Ebensee (Concentration camp) Italy. Esercito

Administrative Notes

Holder of Originals: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: This is a witness interview of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Perpetrators, Collaborators, and Witnesses: The Jeff and Toby Herr Testimony Initiative, a multi-year project to record the testimonies of non-Jewish witnesses to the Holocaust. The interview was conducted remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Special Collection: The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive

Record last modified:: 2023-11-16 09:47:14
This page:: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn719282

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