Always Remember Your Name by Andra & Tatiana Bucci

Author:Andra & Tatiana Bucci
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction

STARTING OVER

We don’t know how the meeting went between Mamma and Papa after the end of the war, because we didn’t speak much about that in the family, either. She returned from Germany, he from prison at the end of 1945: our impression is that they met in Fiume, in the old house where we lived before the war and deportation, and decided together to move from there to Trieste.

In fact, after the war, Fiume, the city where we were born, and where we grew up until our arrest, in 1944, was no longer Italian. Liberated and then occupied by Tito’s army, it became part of the Republic of Yugoslavia as a result of the 1947 Paris peace treaties. Mamma and Papa decided to leave the city where they had met, and where he had been born, because they didn’t want to live under Tito’s communism. They chose to move to Trieste, where Papa could easily return to work; where there was the sea, which everyone liked; and where a less uncertain fate awaited us. Although Trieste, too, was situated on the border between the two countries, and was claimed both by the Italians and by Tito, it hadn’t been annexed to Yugoslavia as Fiume had. The 1947 peace treaties established the Free Territory of Trieste, divided into two zones, one administered by the Allies and the other by Yugoslavia, but with the London Memorandum of 1954 the city became fully Italian again.

In early 1946, Mamma had spent a long period in Naples with Aunt Gisella, who, having returned from the camp and rejoined her husband, was again pregnant. She was expecting our cousin Mariolino. Thus it was in Naples that the hope of finding us materialized, thanks to Giuseppe Parlato, a neighbor of Aunt Gisella’s, who was the president of the local Red Cross chapter. He helped our mother and our aunt, eventually putting them in touch with Lingfield House.

Arriving from Naples at the station in Trieste we looked out the window and finally saw our father. It was a sight that provoked a powerful emotion, in both of us. Recalling that moment now, Tati is as overwhelmed as she was then. At last we “discovered” our papa. And he was such a kindhearted and jolly person, so good-humored, that from that very moment we were able to cherish and love him. He loved us very much, all three of us.

We spent a few days in Trieste, and then, in January 1947, we went with Mamma to Fiume to fill out the documents of expatriation, that is, the declaration that we chose to remain Italian and abandon Yugoslavia. We stayed there for about a month, the time needed to deal with the bureaucracy and pick up the last things we had. Aunt Tonci was there, along with Papa’s brother and Nonna Maria. To this day we can remember our grand-mother’s indifference when she saw us arrive. We never heard a word of affection from her toward us, not even on that occasion.

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