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Calogero Pintorno 1913 - 1944 Edit

Born 20.6.1913 in Villarosa
Died 15.9.1944 in Hartheim

Biography

In the thirties, Calogero Pintorno moved to Milan, where his godfather was already living. He was to help him build a new life there, but this failed due to the poor economic situation. During the course of 1939 he met Alberta Marangoni, who became his wife on 9 December 1942. After a job with the Caproni Aeronautici Bergamaschi he was taken on by the Compagnia Generale di Elettricità, where he worked as a guard in the entrance area.

Due to a deformation of his toes, which made it was painful for him to wear military boots, he withdrew from military service, something which met with disapproval and he was subsequently fired.

His apartment had been searched already in December 1942 on suspicion of membership of the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (National Liberation Committee, CLN), but nothing was found. On 3 March 1944 he was ‘seized’ in his apartment and taken to the San Vittore jail in Milan. This was done on the pretext that he had been named by someone arrested without papers as the person who could identify them. His extremely disturbed state and the refusal of the police to allow his wife to accompany him in this situation made it clear how serious things were. When, on the following day, his mother-in-law went to the prison to bring him clean underwear – and to see him – she was told that he would be home before they had even given him the clothes. His wife did not manage to make contact with him. The guard outside the prison just managed to inform her in secret that ‘they have left for the Fossoli transit camp’. The postwoman, who had seen him in the prison yard from a distance, told his wife that he was very emotional and had asked her to give his wife and child a kiss. After some months his wife received official notification from the Italians that her husband had died as a result of an Anglo-American bombing raid on Mauthausen. A great historical lie!

At home there was always the suspicion that he had been the victim of a denunciation. Research revealed no proof of his membership of the CLN. He was taken first to the Fossoli transit camp, then over the Brenner Pass to Mauthausen (prisoner number 57349), and finally to the Hartheim Castle killing facility, disguised as a ‘prisoner sanatorium’, where he was murdered.

Giuseppe Pintorno

 

ANED, Milan section

Translation into English: Joanna White

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