Because he did not want to fight side by side with the Germans in support of the Italian dictator Mussolini, Pio Bigo refused to comply with his conscription to the military in the autumn of 1943. The young mechanic decided to support the cause of a free Italy instead. Although he had no experience handling weapons, he joined the partisans living in the Alps north of Turin. After just a few weeks in the mountains, however, they were arrested. This marked the beginning of Pio Bigo’s odyssey through various camps: Bergamo, Mauthausen, Linz, Gusen, Auschwitz-Monowitz and, from January 1945 onward, the Buchenwald concentration camp. Back in Italy, he again worked as a mechanic. Initially no one wanted to hear his story; it would be decades before he told it.
