Protagonist: Tullio Binaghi
Author:
From Schio, Tullio Binaghi sends us this testimony. It is about a prison experience (from 1945 to 1946) in Slovenia. His story is completed by a list of the people he had the opportunity to meet in that painful circumstance. In the letter he specifies that "being one of the few survivors of that group, I feel it is my duty to make known what I know". We thank Mr. Binaghi.
Imprisoned for wearing new boots
My aim is to give as concise a testimony as possible, limited to the facts of which I am certain, and concerning mostly people arrested in Trieste and Gorizia during the 45 days of Yugoslav occupation, deported and for the most part never returned.
Personal observations are contained because I could be accused of bias, which would also be human; the attachments (the list of people met and the map of the prison) support what has been stated.
I was stopped by the Yugoslavs on June 27, 1945 at the Divaccia station where the train that was supposed to take me from Trieste to Pola was waiting.
I came from Venice where I had been hosted, as a veteran, at the Morosini boarding school in Fondamenta Nuove, from around the middle of May.
Previously, I had performed military service in the Italian Social Republic, first in the military matriculation office of the Pola Military District and later, as a private, in the thirty-first Provincial Mixed Depot - depot company, field post 847 - at the barracks on Via Rossetti in Trieste.
When the Titoists fell, but not immediately, I took refuge in Venice together with Dino Montagner, a native of Bagnole (Pola), my comrade in arms and friend.
On the morning of June 27, I boarded the train at the Venice railway station to return to my family, unaware of the dangers I was about to run.
I don't know why I was stopped.
Perhaps the boots I was wearing made the soldier suspicious and he made me get off; otherwise I was dressed normally, that is, very poorly, and I was carrying a backpack with a few personal effects on my shoulders.
Witness to my arrest was Olga Angelini, a distant relative who lived in Trieste, in Via Udine, during the war.
I spent the night in Divača, under lock and key.
The next morning, together with two others, I was moved under escort, by train, to San Pietro del Carso, in what was the militia barracks.
I stayed there only one day because that same night, on an open truck, together with many others, with my hands tied behind my back with telephone wire, I was transferred to Villa del Nevoso, to an old and putrid prison.
After a few days they transferred me, along with other unfortunates, to the former Carabinieri barracks, located a little outside the same town, on a slightly uphill road.
Although the journey was short, everything followed a tried and tested script: darkness of night, open truck, telephone wire.
The building was used to file prisoners and obtain information from them, in any way, ranging from intimidation to violence.
I was not mistreated, I was photographed and fingerprinted, as all police forces in this world do.
The prisons were built in the basements of the barracks and boards had been fixed to the windows, almost at ground level, to prevent us from seeing and being seen.
We had to speak in a low voice; we were gasping for air from the heat, the thirst, the poor ventilation.
I remained here until July 14th; that night I was transferred, using the usual system, to Ajdovščina.
The prison in this location was partly destroyed by recent bombing or fire.
I ended up in a corner cell, at the end of a corridor parallel to the entrance courtyard.
In the little room there was a tall, slim person with graying hair; he spoke Italian fairly well, he told me his name was Fortkner, he had been a berater of Portorose.
In a room upstairs was his wife; they had a small child but he did not know how and where she had been placed.