Italian Sinti and Roma underwent violent persecution on a racial basis during Fascism. Whole families were locked up in special concentration camps starting from 11 September 1940. For three years they lived in extreme conditions as the survivors have told. A little girl interned in the concentration camp in Prignano sulla Secchia was Marsilia Del Bar, the last mantuan survivor who left us at the end of last year. In Northern Italy, the armistice of 8 September 1943 led the carabinieri to abandon the concentration camps and the families fled.
Years ago I met several people who survived the genocide attempt, one of them was Giacomo “Gnugo” De Bar (pictured). Together we held some public meetings, a training course for teachers and several meetings in schools. Gnugo was one of the most lucid intellectuals of the Italian Sinti community. His book Street, Patria Sinta, published by Fatatrac at the end of the 1990s, offers the reader a century of history of the Italian Sinti. He spoke of Sinti culture and its contribution to Italian culture, he spoke of racial persecution in Northern Italy and spoke of the partisan war.
Thanks to his stories on the participation of the Sinti in the Liberation, I began to collect the testimonies of those, Sinti and Roma, who participated in Italy in the liberation from fascism. Throughout Europe Sinti and Roma participated in the struggle for liberation such as in France where a battalion formed solely of Sinti partisans fought the Nazis by supporting the Allies in the Normandy landing.
He writes in his book Gnugo
“Many Sinti were partisans. For example, my cousin Lucchesi Fioravante was with the Armando division, but many of us who put on shows during the day also went to take away the weapons from the Germans at night. My father and Uncle Rus returned home in 1945 and they too joined other Sinti at night to carry out actions against the Germans in the Mantua area between Breda Salini and Rivarolo del Re (today Rivarolo Mantovano), where we toured with the that the grandfather had equipped. They were almost a legend and the people of the towns had nicknamed them The Lions of Breda Soliniperhaps also for that time they disarmed a German vanguard patrol.
“They had entered people’s hearts as heroes, also due to the fact that they used the minimum necessary violence, because among us Sinti there has never been the will to war, the instinct to kill a man just because he is an enemy. Even a fascist from Breda Solini knew this who during the Liberation had barricaded himself in his house with an arsenal of weapons, threatening to shoot anyone who approached or to kill himself in turn by blowing up the whole house: “I surrender only to the Lions of Breda Salini”. So my men went, to which he surrendered, but he was then taken over all the same by other partisans, who locked him up in a cellar and beat him up ».
Below is the latest list that I have compiled of people belonging to the Sinti and Roma linguistic minorities who participated in the liberation of their country, Italy.
Joseph “Tarzan” Catter
Partisan fighter
Born in the Province of Cuneo in 1923, Giuseppe was a watchmaker by profession. He joined the partisans with the battle name of “Tarzan”. At the age of 21, in 1944, he was captured by the fascists on Colle San Bartolomeo, in the Ligurian Alps. He was taken to Aurigo (IM) and tortured to speak. Tarzan did not speak and was killed. His fighting Brigade was named after him, partisan hero and Medal of Valor.
Amilcare “Taro” Debar
Partisan fighter
Born in Frossasco in 1927, he was sixteen when he entered the Garibaldi Formations as a relay. Having escaped being shot, he reached the Langhe, where he became a Partisan fighter with the name of “Corsair” in the 48th Bgt. Garibaldi “Dante Di Nanni”, participating in the Liberation of Turin. Taro received the diploma of partisan from the hands of the President of the Republic Sandro Pertini.
Renato “Zulin” Mastini
Martyr of Vicenza
Born in Copparo (FE) in 1924, he is a traveling show business. In August 1944 with the battle name “Zulin” he joined the second brigade “Damiano Chiesa” and participated in actions of the “F. Sabatucci”. He was shot in Vicenza on November 11, 1944.
Walter “Vampa” Catter
Martyr of Vicenza
Born in Francolino di Ferrara in 1914, a circus professional, he joined the second brigade “Damiano Chiesa” with the battle name “Vampa”. On 22 October 1944 the Black Brigade of Camposampiero burst into his campina and arrested him together with Renato “Zulin” Mastini, Lino “Ercole” Festini and Silvio Paina. He was shot in Vicenza on November 11, 1944.
Lino “Ercole” Festini
Martyr of Vicenza
Born in Milan in 1916, musician-theatre by profession, he joined the second brigade “Damiano Chiesa” with the battle name “Ercole”. Arrested on 22 October 1944, together with the other three Sinti martyrs, he was imprisoned in Camposampiero (PD) and tortured by the notorious fascist Nello Allegro. He was shot in Vicenza on November 11, 1944.
Silvio Press
Martyr of Vicenza
Born in Mossano (VI) in 1902, as a circus professional he joined the second “Damiano Chiesa” brigade thanks to Zulin. Arrested on October 22, 1944. Together with the other three Sinti martyrs after Camposampiero, he was transferred to Piazzola sul Brenta, in the basement of Villa Camerini transformed into a prison, where the SS continued to torture them. Tortures in which Federal Vivarelli also took part. He was shot in Vicenza on November 11, 1944.
Giuseppe “Tzigari” Levakovitch
Partisan fighter
Born in Bue in Istria in 1902, he took part in the war in Ethiopia. He returns to Italy, but his family, as a Roma, is interned in Mangone (CS). In the summer of 1944, his wife Vilma was arrested and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. He manages to escape and joins the “Osoppo” brigade with the battle name Tzigari. History Channel made a documentary.
Vittorio “Spatzo” Mayer Pasquale
Partisan fighter
Born in Appiano sulla Strada del Vino (BZ) in 1927, poet and musician. His family is hunted down by the fascists because they are Sinti, his mother Giovanna with her sister Edvige are arrested and killed in the Bolzano concentration camp. He manages to save himself by hiding his belonging to the Sinta estrekárja Bolzanina Community and, at the age of seventeen, joins the partisans in Val di Non with the battle name of Spatzo, a sparrow in the Sinta language.
James Sacco
Partisan fighter
Giacomo recounts: “They captured me with 17 other people while I was going to manghel. At the Turchino pass the partisans freed us. I decided to stay with the partisans, to participate in the liberation of Genoa and fight against the fascists and Nazis, sharing the ideals of the partisans. I was the only sinto of the brigade and was used as a relay. I learned of another Sinto fighter who was a leader, as he led the attacks.”
Rubino Bonora
Partisan fighter. He fought in the “Nannetti” Division in Friuli Venezia Giulia