Skip to content

Ugo Brilli (*1922)
Cigarettes can save Lives

Stationed in North Italy from May to September 1943, the recruit Ugo Brilli never had to fire a single shot. When Italy’s army turned against the Fascists the Germans arrested their former comrades in arms and forced 600,000 “military internees” to work.

Brilli came to Siemens to clear away rubble in Berlin. The “traitors” were hated, their rations miserable. He bought a life-saving kitchen job with cigarettes at first in Weissensee Camp and then in this camp.

In 1945 he returned home to his modest worker’s life.

Young dark haired man

Ugo Brilli, 1944

At the end of 1944 435 former Italian soldiers came into the camp where we are now – including Brilli, who lived in Room 7 of Barracks 3 (now Barracks 1).

Pass for GBI Camp 75/76, 18 November 1944

In the camp here Brilli worked in the kitchen and so he could always organize food. The cost of his health insurance came from his low wages.

Health insurance certificate of kitchen assistant Brilli, 16 April 1945