World War II
My great-uncle Angelo is my grandfather's brother. He was born on January 22nd, 1922 in Serino, Avellino, Campania, Italy. He died on September 1st, 1944 in POW Camp Zeithain. For most of my life, no one knew what really happened to Uncle Angelo. Everyone assumed he died in war, but his body had never been recovered so no one knew for sure and we could not have a proper funeral.
He had been buried in single grave, number 396, in the Italian soldiers cemetery Jacobsthal. After WII, the Soviets controlled the area with a garrison at Zeithain until 1992. The cemetery was destroyed and the bodies were forgotten. However, the fall of the Iron Curtain meant Italian defense military could finally exhume the bodies of the 848 Italian POWs buried there. Thankfully, Uncle Angelo's body was identified and returned to Serino, Italy in 1991 where a proper funeral finally took place with family and friends.
Angelo served in the Italian Army as part of the 111 Artillery regiment. Shortly before Italy joined the allies, he was captured near the Corinth Canal in Greece. He became a POW in a camp in Athens and then transported to a POW camp called Stalag IV B Muehlberg. his registration number that stayed with him for the rest of his life was IV B/256299. He was then transported to Stalag IV C Wistrisz, a village in Sudentengebiet, a place Germany annexed from Czechoslovakia in 1938. Next he was sent to work in a factory for an engineering company called Maschienenfabirk Warnsdorf until he got sick. He developed tuberculosis, in large part due to lack of quality medical care and continued hard physical labor. Once infected, he got transferred to POW camp Zeithain. It was technically a POW hospital, but was called "il campo di morte," the camp of death. The treatment of the sick POWs in this death camp was atrocious and did not comply with the Geneva Conventions about treatment of POWs. Both Soviet and Italian POWs died in this camp.