Egidio

As a boy in school, Egidio’s teacher told him that he would not pass on to the next year because he had not mastered Croatian. He fled to Trieste with an acquaintance. He then spent several months in various reception camps in Italy, but at the same time he also worked in large warehouses. He lived in Tubize, twenty-five kilometres from Brussels. He moved there as a young man to his mother’s sister, who settled with her family in 1946 in Belgium, which at that time needed a lot of workers, as well as miners. In the same area, he met his wife, one of many Istrians who immigrated to Belgium. They had two daughters who frequently came to Vodnjan.

In recent years, he has spent three months every summer in Vodnjan, where he also bought a house, however, Vodnjan is always on his mind because in his apartment in Belgium he is surrounded by pictures and memories from Vodnjan.

There, and so the two of us left, one Chiavalon Mario who is now in Montreal. And we left after two days. It was on 4^th May, and on 6^th May we arrived in Trieste after two days without food or drink.

In Belgium I am a foreigner, but here I am Belgian. They wind me up, they do it to make fun of me, because they say that there’s a Belgian over here, a Belgian over there… In Belgium we are foreigners.