Coming just two decades after the last great global conflict, the Second World War was the most widespread and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries and resulting in more than 50 million military and civilian deaths. The war had affected many other countries other than just Germany. Ones of those countries being Italy. It peaked my interest to learn how WWII affected people in Italy. This is because of my grandfather, Frederico DiCicco. Throughout my fourteen years of life, my grandfather (or Nonno in Italian) has told me many stories from what he remembers from the war.
Now taking into consideration that he was only 8 years old at the time of the war and that he has probably forgotten some stuff, he doesn’t have a huge number of memories and stories but the ones he does have are pretty interesting. Now that I am older and have a better understanding of WWII in its entirety, I have been much more interested in learning about how WWII affected Italian people out side my family. That is what struck me on the topic for this research essay. In my research process, I was hoping to find out the answers to these questions. Did Italian people risk their lives in any way? What were some of the affects after the war?
Were you forced to leave your hometown? Do the events in the war still affect you today? I started to research about my topic and questions on April 26th. On that day I started by googling “WWII in Italy” and the search led me to history. com. The name of the article it led me to was “Italian Campaign”. In that article, I found out about the Italian Allied forced that worked to protect other countries and mostly the people of Italy. I took a few days continuing to search but it led no where. This is because since the war was mainly in Germany against the Jews, Italy was not the top country with information from the war.
Finally, after those four days of searching, on the 30th of April, I went over to my Grandparents house to refresh my memory on all of my Nonno’s stories. This is the point in my research when it got really interesting because of all his stories that made him a good resource. When talking to him, I even found out some things that I didn’t even know. The things he told me helped me in the process of finding more information online. This led me to May 2, when I went on the EBSCO website and found stories from a man who lived through the war as a kid just like my Nonno. While I was researching, I ended up revising my research questions.
The information that I ended up finding did not really connect well to my first set of questions. I really ended up having to change them so they would fit in with a lot of the things my Nonno was telling me. Over the course of these few weeks, I’ve have researched a good bit on my topics and have created a solid foundation with my information. Throughout the 1940s, WWII had affected mainly Jewish people in Germany. While researching and learning more about the topic, more and more information was popping up about how the war had affected other people in different countries.
One of those would be the people and country of Italy. The first thought that came about was wether or not Italian people risked their lives in any way? When researching, Frederico DiCicco gave information about the hiding of allied forces. He stated that “My family hid some Italian Allied troops in our barn. They were hidden under the stacks of hay. I recall Nazi troops coming by the barn and asking my father if they could check the barn and he let them go in and check it out. None of the Allies ended up being caught and they moved on after about a day. This research shows that many Italian families helped hid and protect the Allied forces even know the consequences which could be deadly for the whole family.
Another thought that came while doing the research was what were some of the affects after the war? After a good bit of researching, it was found that Tullio Bertini stated “The following day we discovered a live bomb directly behind our house, by the chapel of the Madonna del Carmine, but fortunately it did not explode. The bomb left a huge hole in the ground, and I peered over the edge, I saw part of the bomb protruding from the dirt that it moved in plunging into the soft ground. This research shows that even after the war was over, the Nazi’s had impacted many cities in Italy.
That means that for a while after the war when people returned to there town, many people were finding things and going through the clean up process. Another thought that came about while researching was were people in Italy forced to leave their hometown? It was stated again by Tullio Bertini in a different article that “When my father returned home, he informed us that we were going to have to leave Diecimo, but that the consensus was that the villagers did not want to be placed on a train to be transported to Northern Italy.
The recommendation from the Pievano was for the people to take whatever they could carry and literally run away to the nearby mountains and valleys. He felt that people would be able to find shelter with families living in the various villages. ” This research shows that it was a scary time for many families and most had to evacuate their home town for their own safety or by force of the nazis. The final thing that was thought of while researching was if the events of the war still affect Italian people today?
When talking to Fred again, he stated “Most certainly do the events still affect me. It was a very scary time for me, my family, and a lot of other people too. This will definitely be something that I will remember forever. ” This shows that the war had a impact on people all over the world. Obviously in some place like Germany, it was affected more but doing this research has shown that it affects other people too