My name is Rinaldo Budin. I was born in Pola, Croatia, to a family of shipmakers. At that time, Croatia was part of Italy. I had two brothers and one sister. My sister died when she was young.
I enlisted in the army in 1940, working in radio transmission, a year before the war. Lots of people were enthusiastic about it, lots supported Il Duce, Mussolini, fascism. I wasn't excited about the war. I didn't care for it. The army didn't give a particular explanation for the invasion of Greece, but we knew why - Mussolini gave a speech in Rome, and I saw this as a consequence of fascism - we invaded for ideology.
I left Italy on January 4, 1941 from Brindisi, and we went by boat to Albania. When we got to Greece, I felt like a tourist because Italy had already occupied much of the area. In June, I had to go to the hospital because a donkey went into a river and I tried to rescue it, because it was carrying supplies. I was injured by the animal when it stomped on my foot. From there, I was in and out of the hospital, after making friends with a doctor, who managed to keep me out of a lot of fighting.
It was during summer. It was a nice time. I got to know the locals, and my relationship with them was okay, and there were times we met with Greek soldiers. One soldier I met was a pilot that had been bombing Italians, so I even met my enemy and the relationship was friendly. The locals used to call us "chickens" because we had a feather on our hats.
When I was in Athens, because I was recovering, I used to hang out with the locals. I got to know some youths. I spent some time with them, talking about history I learned in school, about ancient Greece. I was learning to speak Greek. When I was twenty years old, everything was easier to learn. Within a couple of months, I could communicate easily.
The truth is, I didn't experience much of the war. I didn't make many friends in the military, and I didn't stay in touch with those I had met. While my company in the army went to Samos, near Turkey, I kept getting leave to recover from my injury. In March 1942, I returned to Italy for further hospitalization, before being sent back to Pola in July of the same year.
I realized in 1943 that Italy was losing, and the USA and England were very powerful. I was hopeful that this part of Croatia I was from would remain part of Italy. However, this didn't happen. I wasn't pessimistic about the future, and I had a brother living in Germany, and another brother fighting with the English in the south of Italy. There were options. The military deemed me unfit for duty that year. However, on paper, it appears as though I remained in the war until the end.
I was married December 26, 1942. I started working as a banker in March the following year. After the war, I went with my family to the mountains - I had the option to go to Trieste to work for a branch of the same bank. I chose to find a house here and settle down.
