Vitale Balconi
Here is the English translation of the text, keeping the formal and historical tone:
Born in Agrate Brianza at 4 Via Umberto I (now Via Mazzini, “curt del Burghet”), he was unmarried.
Enlisted in the Royal Army as a soldier in the 36th Mixed Engineer Company, P.R.T. “Forlì” Division, the date of his enlistment and the specific military campaigns in which he participated are unknown. On September 8, 1943, his unit was deployed in Greek territory, which is where his capture took place.
From that moment on, he was classified as an IMI (Internato Militare Italiano – Italian Military Internee), a forced laborer to be utilized within the Nazi production apparatus.
He died on January 1, 1945, following a workplace accident at the Freinsheim Vorderpfalz camp (Palatinate – Germany). The details are contained in a deposition given after the war by Luigi Santambrogio, a fellow prisoner who was present at the scene of the accident:
“...on January 1, 1945, around ten o'clock, in a small town in Alsace, Germany, the aforementioned Balconi—a sapper belonging to the 36th Mixed Engineer Company P.R.T. and an internee in Germany like myself—was killed instantly while working in a forest with other comrades when a tree fell on him. I declare that I identified him personally... he was buried by me and others in the local civilian cemetery on January 5, 1945...”
After his initial burial in the Kandel cemetery, his remains were transferred to the Italian Military Cemetery of Honor in Frankfurt am Main.
Born in Agrate Brianza at 4 Via Umberto I (now Via Mazzini, “curt del Burghet”), he was unmarried.
Enlisted in the Royal Army as a soldier in the 36th Mixed Engineer Company, P.R.T. “Forlì” Division, the date of his enlistment and the specific military campaigns in which he participated are unknown. On September 8, 1943, his unit was deployed in Greek territory, which is where his capture took place.
From that moment on, he was classified as an IMI (Internato Militare Italiano – Italian Military Internee), a forced laborer to be utilized within the Nazi production apparatus.
He died on January 1, 1945, following a workplace accident at the Freinsheim Vorderpfalz camp (Palatinate – Germany). The details are contained in a deposition given after the war by Luigi Santambrogio, a fellow prisoner who was present at the scene of the accident:
“...on January 1, 1945, around ten o'clock, in a small town in Alsace, Germany, the aforementioned Balconi—a sapper belonging to the 36th Mixed Engineer Company P.R.T. and an internee in Germany like myself—was killed instantly while working in a forest with other comrades when a tree fell on him. I declare that I identified him personally... he was buried by me and others in the local civilian cemetery on January 5, 1945...”
After his initial burial in the Kandel cemetery, his remains were transferred to the Italian Military Cemetery of Honor in Frankfurt am Main.