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Aldo Fedi 1921 - 1945 Edit

Born 28.5.1921 in San Benedetto
Died 28.1.1945 in Peggau

Biography

Aldo Fedi, son of Angiolo and Ida Degl'Innocenti, was born in San Benedetto in Alpe in the municipality of Portico e San Benedetto (Forlì-Cesena) on 28th May 1921. His father, a telegraph operator, after the birth of Alda, Aldo's sister, together with the whole family returned to San Piero a Sieve, his hometown, where Aldo successfully attended primary school. He graduated from the Scuole Magistrali in Florence and was one of the very few youths to graduate in the village, but he never exercised his profession because he was called to attend the officers' cadet course in Aosta and then the officers' school in Malles Venosta (Bolzano) in 1942-1943.

 He returned home after 8th September 1943, and evacuated to Bosco ai Frati with his whole family, and belonged to the 303rd SAP (Patriotic Action Squad). Unfortunately, at 23:00, on 10th June 1944, while leaving the Taiuti cinema with friends, he was caught by the Nazis while taking a weapon from one of their vehicles. After being temporarily transferred to the transit camp of Fossoli (Modena), Fedi arrived at the concentration camp of Mauthausen. He was registered on 24th June 1944 with the number 76329, as an industrial draftsman (Bauzeichner) and catalogued as an ‘Italienischer Schutzhäftling’, that is, an Italian prisoner with special custody, marked by the red triangle of cloth sewn on his tunic, a category which included partisans, anti-fascists, trade unionists, military draft dodgers.

Fedi's stay in Mauthausen was short, he most probably left as early as August 1944 for the satellite camp Peggau-Hinterberg (active from 17th August 1944 to 2nd April 1945, one of more than 40 satellite camps spread throughout Austria). Together with Aldo, 888 deportees arrived there, working in the construction and extension of the camp and the tunnel system, where groups of about 400 people worked 12-hour shifts, exploited in the production of parts for aircraft, trucks and “Tiger” type tanks for the armaments company Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG in Graz. In this camp, code-named ‘Marmor’, Aldo Fedi died at 19:00 on 28th January 1945, due to a common heart failure (allgemeine Herzschwäche), as reported in the death certificate, signed by the Blockführer (the block chief) on 30th January 1945.

 In 1957, Aldo Fedi, together with Silvano Stefanacci, was given the name of the new primary school building in San Piero a Sieve.  At Mauthausen, in 2005, during a journey of remembrance, a delegation of administrators, led by the then Mayor of San Piero a Sieve Alessia Ballini, accompanied by Mrs. Alessandra Belli, Fedi's niece, carried a plaque from the municipality in perpetual memory of Aldo's sacrifice. In the same year, the Municipality of Peggau and the Land of Styria erected a memorial on the site where the camp's 20 barracks stood, engraved with the names of the approximately 100 fallen deportees from the camp, including 13 Italians. The Municipality of Florence recognised Aldo Fedi with the fiorino d’oro, which his nephew donated to the Municipality of San Piero a Sieve.

 

Marco Bini, volunteer of the historical committee "Comitato 10 Settembre" of San Piero a Sieve, in collaboration with the Municipality of Scarperia e San Piero (2025)

 

Source:

Comitato 10 Settembre - Aldo Fedi

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