Antonio Pierri in January 1941 was called to arms in the 226th Infantry Regiment with the rank of corporal to then reach the 48th Regiment in Bari until November 1941 fighting on the territory declared in a state of war.
In December 1941 with the IV Battalion of the Tappa Command he left for Albania where he fought on the Adriatic coasts until April 1943. A late war and in front of increasingly devastating scenarios, dramatic for a boy of only twenty years, he must momentarily return home for the death of father, demobilized from the African War, who died prematurely at the age of 48 due to his injuries and suffering suffered both during the Great War and in Oriental Africa.
After the fifteen-day license granted for the loss of the parent, in mid-April 1943 yes he embarks again for the Albanian shores and is promoted to major corporal of artillery and continues to fight.
On 8th of September 1943 Italy was divided into two with the Armistice signed by the Kingdom of Italy with the Allies seeing the country stand on two fronts, the Italy of the King with the Americans and the British against the Republic of Sala by Mussolini which continues to fight alongside Nazi Germany. To that point, Italian soldiers fond themselves having to make a tough decision: to join the new regime made up and branded with blood or fight against it knowing that you are facing death or a death cruel fate.
On these premises the Resistance begins where the partisans with all their strength yes they beat to liberate the nation from Nazi-fascism. Antonio Pierri decides not to cooperate with the Germans and to fight them and resist their bloody offensives but, unfortunately, he is captured and taken prisoner on 10th of September 1943. And so it is that, stopping first in several labor camps, it is conducted in the field of concentration Stalag XXA A 48266 in Thorn where it is used for mining work for the revenue of the coal with the assignment of the lamp No. 2892 Hoenegger, working for 12 hours a day on an empty stomach and treated with a whip. Because of these sufferings he becomes ill and suffers pain, suffering and fear, daily seeing death in the face in those places where the cruelty of the Germans does not calm down and the terror fades only thanks to the desire to survive.
Fortunately, the war is about to end and Antonio Pierri is freed by the Russian Army with the which reaches Bologna a couple of months after the liberation of 25 April 1945. Later, he returned on foot, between one passage and another, to the military district of Lecce in August 1945 where he obtains the license sheet to finally return to his home in Ugento at the end of October 1945.
