I13 My two brothers in Russia

Narrator:

My brother Luigi spent 37 months in Russia. He even ate nettles and when he came back home he weighed only thirty-one kilos. He was 22 or 23 years old. When he arrived he wore clergy clothes. I don’t remember the name of the man who took him home on his bicycle. He took him to me because he knew me. Seccafien was his name! My brother told him that my name was Ester. Luigi took that man to me and told him to call me in a loud voice, “Ester! Ester!” But he continued to curse while he was calling me and so I was afraid of opening the door. The man told me that he lived at Casacorba and he shouted his name. “Here is your brother”, he said. “Open!”

Later my husband went to Carpenedo to tell my mum that they had said on the radio that some prisoners had arrived. He said, “Im going to Treviso and see if Luigi has arrived”.
Luigi had already been at home, outside the door of the house. The poor man continued to call me and I finally had the courage to open the door and so I could see my brother again!

My other brother was tied by the Germans at a pole sticked in the snow deeper than a man's height. By beating his feet, because he was tied and he couldn't move, he melted the snow around him.

A German soldier, with an interpreter, asked him if he wanted to die (he would have killed him with a gun shot) or to be set free by cutting the ropes, so he could escape. He chose the cutting of the ropes, of course, and escaped.

He kept walking for three days and three nights. When he found his unit they made him get into a vehicle of the Red Cross and he was taken to hospital.

And he too came back home safe and sound.