1942…

The day it started and the day it ended. My father (foreground, left, with the “gilet”). His sister, Elisa, beside him with the bow in her hair. Behind them, on the right, his mother, Albeide. On the far left, his father, Antonio, and beside him, big sister Marie. And in the centre is his brother Alessandro, 19 years old, dressed in his Alpino uniform. They’re standing outside the family business, the hairdressing salon in Schio. Alessandro is on his way to the station. That afternoon, he’d climb aboard a military train headed East, for Gorizia, for Poland, for the Don Front. For a fate forever unknown.