Born under the bombs
The fall of some allied bombs near Florence, at Villa Cisterna, the Florentine residence of Aimone di Savoia and his wife Irene, caused the early birth of the future protagonist of the Savoy-Aosta cadet branch, which took place in a room on the ground floor considered safe from bombing. The newborn received the title of Duke of Puglia.
In the Hirschegg concentration camp
Amedeo di Savoia-Aosta revealed that, at the time of his birth, his mother had him take fingerprints by the police chief of Florence for fear of being kidnapped. On 26 July 1944 on the orders of Heinrich Himmler, the Nazis deported little Amedeo to the Austrian concentration camp of Hirschegg, near Graz, together with his mother Irene of Greece and his cousins Margherita and Maria Cristina, the only daughters of his uncle Amedeo, third duke. d’Aosta, and the Duchess Anna d’Orléans.
The return to Italy
After the liberation from the Hirschegg concentration camp in May 1945, Amedeo lived for a few weeks in Switzerland. On 7 July 1945 Irene of Greece with her son returned to Italy: they first stopped in Milan, where Aimone saw her son for the first time, and then reached Naples, where Amedeo met his paternal grandmother Elena d’Orléans.
In Italy, Irene and Amedeo settled in Fiesole, near Florence. In 1948 Aimone di Savoia, Amedeo’s father, died in Buenos Aires with a heart attack, and the latter assumed the ducal title as head of the Savoy-Aosta house.