Mamma Teresa's Diary

By Silvia Pascale

Teresa's son was one of the many Italian Military Internees (IMI), the Italian soldiers who, after the armistice of 8 September 1943, refused to side with the Republic of Sal and Hitler and were subsequently deported to the Third Reich and German-occupied territories where they were forced to work in Nazi labour camps.
When Mamma Teresa learns of her son's death, she is utterly grief-stricken. But her greatest suffering comes from not knowing where he was buried. It takes her five long years to obtain the necessary documents to travel abroad in search of his grave. But this is just the beginning of her ordeal. Setting off from Bova di Marrara, near Ferrara in northern Italy, she makes her way to Germany, all alone, without knowing a word of German and with very little money. The journey is long and arduous and Teresa records the experience in a diary, producing a unique and exceptional testimony. Decades later, Teresa's relatives dig out that same diary from an attic and hand it to the author, who thus inherits her memories.
"A memorial to my poor son and to everything that his mamma did for him, because only a mother could do this for her son and I did it out of immense love."
(From the diary of Mamma Teresa Zerbini n e Mascellani)

==========================================================================================Translated Author's biography: Silvia Pascale lives in Treviso, in northern Italy, and is a history teacher and researcher.
After specialising in Roman History and carrying out several research projects in this field, she began conducting history workshops in classrooms and training teachers. She has won several national awards for her innovative methods of teaching history and topics related to human rights. She has collaborated with the 'DiPast' International Centre for the Didactics of History and Heritage at the University of Bologna.
Since 2011, she has focused on modern history, in particular on issues related to the Armenian Genocide, concentration camps and Italian Military Internees (IMIs), especially after discovering family connections to these historical events. She chairs the Treviso section of the ANEI (Italian Association of former Nazi Labour Camp Internees) and is a member of its National Council. She was selected by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research and the University of Paris for the seminar "Thinking and Teaching the History of the Holocaust" at the M morial de la Shoah. Together with Barbara Conte, she runs a closed Facebook group with 1700 people for sharing, researching and exchanging documentation on IMIs.
With CIESSE Edizioni she has published "Come stelle nel cielo - In viaggio tra i Lager" (2017), "Una candela illumina il Lager" (2018), "Fiori dal Lager" (2019), "Guareschi e il Natale nel Lager" and "Il diario di mamma Teresa" (2020).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 8866603449
• ISBN13: 9788866603443
• Release Date: July 2025
• Publisher: Ciesse Edizioni
• Length: 210 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"