Giacomo Baccarani (1922 – 1944)
Giacomo Baccarani was born in Novellara, Reggio Emilia, on 1 July 1922. He worked as a farm labourer until he was drafted into the Italian army in 1941. On 12 September 1943, after the armistice between Italy and the Allies, Giacomo Baccarani was captured by the Germans along with other soldiers of his regiment. He was first sent to Stalag I-F in Suwalken (today Suwałki, Poland). It was during this time that he began to keep the diary we now have.
As the Red Army advanced, Giacomo Baccarani and his comrades were transferred further and further west, arriving at Stalag IV B Mühlberg in southern Brandenburg on 12 January 1944.
Forced Labour until exhaustion
On 10 February 1944, he was transferred to a labour detachment of the army ammunitions depot Altenhain-Wurzen near Leipzig. The Italian military internees there were given scant rations, totally inadequate for their hard labour, as Giacomo Baccarani describes in his diary. He soon fell ill and was unable to work. In August 1944, the camp doctors at the Leipzig-Wahren prisoner of war hospital diagnosed him with tuberculosis. On 30 August 1944, he was sent to the prisoner of war camp Zeithain.
Illness and death at the Zeithain camp
After Italy’s capitulation on 8 September 1943, several transports of Italian prisoners of war, known as Italian military internees (IMI), arrived in Zeithain in October 1943. The prisoners were staff and wounded or sick patients from Italian army hospitals previously stationed in south-eastern Europe. They were housed in 78 wooden barracks and set up their own army hospital.
After recovering, most of the Italian prisoners were released to work. After a few months of forced labour, however, the number of Italians coming to Zeithain from labour detachments and other army hospitals suffering from tuberculosis increased enormously. Most of these prisoners were long-term incapacitated with little prospect of recovery. Despite the efforts of the Italian nursing staff, the death rate in the camp continued to rise. Zeithain thus became a camp where most Italian POWs died.
This was also the fate of Giacomo Baccarani. In his diary he describes how, despite his deteriorating condition, he drew strength from the presence of the Italian military chaplains in the hospital, who also provided him with fresh clothes. He died of tuberculosis on 25 November 1944.
While the first Italians who died were buried in the cemetery at Neuburxdorf, 15 kilometres away, from February 1944 burials took place in the new Italian soldiers’ cemetery at Jacobsthal. Unlike the Soviet prisoners, the 874 dead Italians were buried in individual graves with military honours. Giacomo Baccarani was buried in grave number 575. His few belongings, including his diary, were kept by the Italian priest Padre Erio Ghidini. After the war, he gave them to Giacomo Baccarani’s parents in Novellara.
Late honours
The site of the former camp was used by Soviet troops after the war. The Italian cemetery was neglected and levelled. As a result, the remains of the Italian victims were not discovered until 1991, when they were repatriated and received with military honours in the grounds of the Redipuglia War Memorial in Italy. Some were then buried in family graves in their hometowns. The remains of Giacomo Baccarani were also repatriated to Italy. Giacomo Baccarani’s grave is now in the cemetery of his home town of Novellara.
The Zeithain Memorial commemorates the dead Italians with name plaques on the site of the former Italian cemetery. Among them is the name of Giacomo Baccarani. In his native Novellara, in the province of Reggio Emilia, a Stumbling Stone was laid and inaugurated in the spring of 2020, with the participation of family members and the local Istoreco Historical Institute.
