Casgliadau Arlein
Amgueddfa Cymru
Chwilio Uwch
Recordiad sain / Audio recording: Mario Cicigoi
Oral history recording with Mario Cicigoi. Part 1 of 5 (AV 11379, AV 11380, AV 11381, AV 11382, AV 11383). Recorded as part of the Italian Memories in Wales project (2008-10), delivered by ACLI-ENAIP and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
00.01 The interviewer asks Mario when and where he was born and he replies that he was born in Drenchia, a small hamlet in Lase. His mother died when he was only 12 months old and so he was adopted by his aunt, but she also died when he was 12. So he went back to live with his father, who had remarried and had four more children. The situation in that family was difficult because food was so scarce. Mario explains that he managed to finish the fifth year of primary school in Lase, but the school was often closed because of Tito’s partisan, Italian or German strikes.
05.20 The interviewer asks Mario about his memories of childhood games. Mario explains that they would often play hide and seek but not with a ball as it would end up down in the valley. He has vivid memories of the Second World War, in particular Tito’s partisans, who spent many days in his town. The German soldiers stayed in their town for a long time and they were filled with fear that they might burn down the whole town.
11.00 Mario also remembers very well when he was a Balilla as a child (a young boy trained up to be a fascist); the class would often march around the whole town in their uniforms. Mario stresses that in their town they spoke almost exclusively Slovenian, and so when he went to school he barely understood what the teacher was saying.
16.50 Mario talks about exchanges being made in order to buy food instead of money being spent. He recalls that the whole family worked the land and that food was scarce. At times they would go to work for landowners, which was the only way to earn money.
19.57 When the interviewer asks Mario to talk about his family home, he explains that it consisted of two rooms and nine people lived there. Then, slowly his brothers would leave the family home to find their fortune; in Switzerland, Milan, in the mines in Belgium. Regarding his relationship with his stepmother he explains that he never got to know her very well.
25.29 He has vivid memories of the Festa della Madonna on the 15th August, when, he explains, the town comes alive and it was always a chance to celebrate with the whole community.