A British soldier remembers Trieste in 1946

[Ron]

Hi to all, but in particular to Maria

I found this site purely by chance and was fascinated to read my name and that of my unit.

To explain.

As a British soldier, serving in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars I found myself in the Trieste area in between October 1945 and January 1947.

As a contributor to the British BBC WW2 Archives I have posted many stories and photos of those days and now that I have found this site I will probably find the occasion to bore you with my memories.

I am waiting for Maria to remind me of the circumstances under which we both attended this wonderful performance of Carmen.

I have no doubt that more will follow

Auguri

Ron

[macondo]

Welcome to our Forum, Ron.

You will be surprised that a good friend of us, and an enthusiastic participant of this very same Forum, had been serving in Trieste about the same period of yours. His name is Thomas H. Southgate aka Larry and he is from the Manchester area. He also travelled in 2004 to Trieste with a pretty large group of former servicemen from the UK. I understand this trip was organised by the BETFOR Association:

http://www.milhist.net/betfor/index.html

A couple of years ago, I made some research about the role of the 4th Queen's Own Hussars on the capture of the notorious SS General Odilo Globocnik that ended with his suicide on Paternion, Austria.
It is briefly mentioned here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilo_Globocnik

Well Ron. We (speaking also on behalf of our fellow forumists ) hope you are going to 'visit' us quite often...

PS I am always very surprised how Maria can remember so well facts and names from 60 years ago...

[Ron]

Hi Macondo

Many thanks for the "Welcome aboard".

This is such a small world and SS General Globocnik is no stranger to me.

Use this link:
http://2ndww.blogspot.com/
to go to the Blog that was set up by some four of us 'refugees' from the BBC WW2 website. Scroll down till you come to "Rounding up the SS in Austria and you will see why I was interested in him.

We will talk again, I am sure

Ron

[AdlerTS]

Hello Ron,

you've finally made it !

Glad to have you here with us. Don't be afraid to bore us

[refolo]

W E L C O M E!

Well, Mr. Goldstein, you don't remember me? who would have bother to look at a young girl aged 10 ? but I remember you soldiers.
Unfortunatly, all the people concerned are in better places.
Mr. Nacson (my nextdoor neighbour ) at that time, was already an old man. He had helpt you to have the Passover in a decent place. The Synagoge was in a mess. He was in charge to welcome all the Jewish back to Trieste with same help from others.
My memory are so vivid , that I even wrote your name in my book.

As far as the Opera concerned, I had to be, at my age, in middle of either adults or someone with uniforms. That was the security suitable to my family.
I am glad, you have found a place to droop a few of your story, I think the majority of you soldiers had a good time, and pleased about the triestini, I could read in your face, always smiling with your smelling pipes, some, of which was never litted. HA!!! HA!!!


Maria aka refolo

[Ron]

Dear Maria

Mr.Goldstein?

Please Maria, after all these years you must surely call me Ron .

A thousand apologies for failing to pay the correct attention to the bright young lady that you obviously were some sixty odd years ago.

This certainly hasn't stopped you causing immense amusement in the Goldstein family circle particularly amongst my daughters who thought they were going to read lurid stories about their father's past .

May I set the scene for others who may be reading this ?

The time was 1946 and I was a 23 year old British soldier serving in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars and stationed at Opicina on the hills overlooking Trieste.
You, as you have already said, were 10 and this was not the easiest of times to be a young Jewish girl in the tough streets of a city recovering from the traumas of wartime Italy.
The Passover service you refer to was organised by the local British chaplain and an AMGOT (Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories) worker who may have been the Mr.Nacson that you refer too.
I still have photos taken at the time and when I have settled in to this website I will certainly let you see them.

It is a delight to make your aquaintance again after all these years and as we are just entering the Jewish New Year may I take this opportunity of wishing you and your family the very best of good health for the years ahead.

All good wishes

Ron

[refolo]

RON!

No offences taken, I am not a Jew. I am a full blooded Catholic girl.
Never mind, long story, never been told. You don't and couldn't not have understood, what's was going on in Trieste.

Tell yours daughters that I dind't kept a bad opinion of you or your troops. I remember that every one of you English was named ""GEORGE"" and of course the Americans ""JOE"".

Few things went wrong, as everywhere else in the world. We can't compare that time on what is going on at the moment, but watching videos-films and reports related , you can see in the eyes of young children the joy of comfort, progress, and of course promisses for better life and freedom.
The same thing happen in my city.

You left at the begining of Juannary 1947.....very bad time. I enjoyed the rest of the following years, always good to remember.
Keep writing , we might get on something, which, we never had the occasion to discussed before.

Maria aka refolo

[Ron]

Maria

Thanks for your prompt and courteous reply.

I see that by assuming you were Jewish I made my usual mistake of thinking that 1 + 1 made 2 when all the time it should have made 11 .

Having said that, my wishes to you for a good year still stand and I extend this also to Stefano who helped me through problems I had while trying to register on this site.

Since first posting I have had a chance to look around and some of the links to other sites are certainly first class. One site in particular named BETFOR has a gallery of postcard views of old Trieste and I counted at least four that I pasted into my own Army Album (see http://ronsactualarmyalbum.blogspot.com/).

If you wish to know more about what life was like for a British soldier in 1946 go to my profile http://www.blogger.com/profile/17035008
and use the links to take you to the various sites that I have become involved with over the past few years.

I have many happy memories of Trieste and I thank you and "A Trieste" for reviving them.

Ciao

Ron

[macondo]

I am waiting for Maria to remind me of the circumstances under which we both attended this wonderful performance of Carmen.
......
Auguri

Ron

And below is page 64 from Ron's scrapbook to help these memories coming:

[refolo]

Dear Ron,

The protaginist...Miss CARMEN was to be a very important mezzo-soprano unfortunatly she used to drink before performances.
For two days we had to wait for her to wake up from MORPHEUS arms.
Anyhow, that day it was the most oustanding performance of the all season.

I was with almost 22 people in all, belong to the youth association of the Opera amateur of Trieste. Being so young and in mad with operas they put me among the young English soldiers with the name of
''AMG MASCOT"'

my name is ADAMI MARIA GIOVANNA, so that what standing for your AMG.

Maria aka refolo

[ffdt]

Hallo Ron, and welcome aboard ... oh ... well ... due to a joke we play here in this forum, I've better had do say "welcome on land", because we consider ourselves as survivors to the shipwreck of triestemia site ;-D

This is why your (and all the newcomer's ) forum title is "naufrago" (shipwrecked)

We all wish you (and to all who will come here) a good time here in the "A Trieste" forum.


Ciau


Franco

[refolo]

HEI! RON

Now I know you told you about me, MR. Peter Ghiringhelli.....
I wrote to him, and congratulate him of corecting Mr. Dudley about the
Allied set foot in Yugoslavia.......Ha!!! what a small world, we are so far away but thanks to this PC we are close enough for memory.

By the way, do you have any friends? relatives in Australia? I met few from New Zealand, I do believe there is plenty around Melbourne too.
Let me know.

Maria aka refolo

[Ron]

Hi Maria

I'm pleased you have made contact with Peter... have you had a look at his super website http://www.petergh.f2s.com/ ?

No relatives in the areas you mention I'm afraid but after finding this website in such an un-usual manner I suppose anything is possible .

Im also pleased that you have started to explore the BBC WW2 Archives.
If you look for the SEARCH box on the top right hand of any page and enter TRIESTE you will find there are 32 pages of stories about wartime Trieste including a few of my own

Ciao

Ron

[Ron]

Hi Franco

Just realised I hadn't thanked you for your welcome and your explanation of the name "naufrago" that you use to 'label' newcomers.

On the BBC WW2 site I myself was a 'helper' and so I know how important it is to make newcomers feel at home, nevertheless thankyou for your welcome

I'm still not quite sure who is who on the site but I've no doubt all will be revealed in due course.

Ciao

Ron

[refolo]

You English, left me amazed .......our opening time for swimming is around the middle of May, you people where already diving in the middle of February.

Maria aka refolo

[ffdt]

[...]I'm still not quite sure who is who on the site but I've no doubt all will be revealed in due course.[...]

Ron, don't be afraid ... we are a group of people that share their love for Trieste ... that's all the "who" that really matter ;-D

Ciau

Franco

[Ron]

Franco

Capito

While I have your attention please explain why when I use GOOGLE to look up the meaning of "ciau" (which you, and others use) it replies with "did you mean ciao?" (which I use) ?

I suppose you will refer me to the Tristeinian dialect but please keep the answer simple for someone who's written Italian was never any good in the first place

CIAO !

Ron

[babatriestina]

"did you mean ciao?"

Hi, Ron, you are right, the form generally used is ciao, which is a contraction of sciao, schiavo, meaning "yours slave" ( italian also Servo suo). But in Trieste it's pronounced as ciau and we try on this forum to use vernacular expressions.
Well, it is like the "zilch" of Maria, which I didn't find on my english dictionnary and I had to search with Google!

[PeterG]

Now I know you told you about me, MR. Peter Ghiringhelli.....
I wrote to him, and congratulate him of correcting Mr. Dudley about the
Allied set foot in Yugoslavia.......Ha!!! what a small world ...

Contact at last Maria! I did see your message to me here http://tinyurl.com/re83b I tried to email you, obviously unsuccessfully.

What is amazing is that you contacted me then wrote about Ron on entirely different matters, not knowing that Ron and I were friends. It is one of the most astonishing coincidences I have ever heard of.

I have been looking at your dialect in another thread, el dialeto triestin, and there seems to be much Venetian influence. Many of the words are very close to el dialet lombard which I know well but which is now sadly almost extinct. I am pleased to see that Triestin is thriving and I look forward to hearing more of Triest, la bela zità

[macondo]

What is amazing is that you contacted me then wrote about Ron on entirely different matters, not knowing that Ron and I were friends. It is one of the most astonishing coincidences I have ever heard of.

Peter, a warm welcome.

I don't believe it's a coincidence, as for a mere 'acasual chance'. I firmly believe this is another example of Jung's meaningful 'sincronicity', as we are probably tapping to a bank of collective consciousness of which we have very little knowledge.