Thread by @zkusovac

My aunt Nives Portolan (1927-2018), #Holocaust survivor. Tattoo number 8614, inmate of Risiera di #SanSaba, #Ravensbruck & #Auschwitz. Liberated by Red Army January 1945 @ 38kg.
#HolocaustRemembranceDay #Holocaustgedenktag
THREAD /2

2/ She hated #Communism. But had only praise & admiration for #RedArmy. They never expected to see such horrors at #Auschwitz but within 48 hrs RedArmy had organized excellent medical care for inmates. Later relocated them to recovery facilities. Very dedicated & non-political /3

3/She was doing high school in Firenze when WW2 started. Eldest sister, Livia(1921-2005) was at university in Trieste so she went to live with her, for safety. But Livia was involved with resistance, helping clandestine activities against the Fascists. Italians never found out /4

4/but when Italy surrendered & Germans took over, in September 1943, they quickly discovered that Livia was connected to the underground. In late October 1943 they arrested Livia and 2 days later they took Nives as well although at 16 she had no connection to the resistance. /5

5/They held them together in Trieste for 2 months, then transferred to Germany; after 2-3 months in Ravensbruck Livia was sent to Bergen-Belsen, Nives to Auschwitz. Both survived, but through a turn of fate & events Nives was repatriated to then Yugoslavia, Livia to Italy. /6

6/They only saw each other again in 1956. Livia died in 2005, Nives in 2018. After the camps she harboured a great respect & affection for the Jews. She kept a Menorah prominently displayed at home. It confused many first-time visitors even those who knew she was Catholic /7

7/ When Red Army liberated Auschwitz they initially held them in the camp for a week or two until they organized some medical care for the inmates in hospitals nearby. As they recovered from most urgent ilnesses they were then transferred to Allied-run rehab facilities in South/8

8/Germany. Aunt Nives spent 2 months recovering at a semi-ruined spa. In the meantime they were registered so in May 1945 she was transferred to a Yugoslav repatriation camp where all prisoners of war, forced labourers, camp inmates etc were gathered to be transported home /9

9/There was no regular transport, everything was run by the military. In Summer 1945 she was taken to a Yugoslav camp for returnees from Germany in Bela Crkva on Romanian border where they were debriefed & checked by security forces. She said they discovered some who claimed /10

10/to have been forced labourers but turned out to have volunteered to fight in German units. While at Bela Crkva camp she fell in love with the camp commander, Yugoslav Army major who became a Communist before the war as a law student and joined the Partisans at the beginning/11

11/of the war & ended it as a major. When she was cleared & about to be released, in September or October 1945, he proposed to her. She accepted under the condition that both his & her parents approve. He was a Serb from an upper middle class Belgrade family and his mother was/12

12/not happy that he'd marry a Catholic but she gave her blessing. In early December 1945 they travelled to Korčula to get her family approval. It took 2 weeks to get there as there was no regular transpoprt. When they get the blessing, she wanted a church wedding. He did not /13

13/object so they got married on New Year's Eve 1946 in Korčula Cathedral. When they returned to Belgrade his parents demanded an Orthodox ceremony too. Mother in law told Nives "you have to get married in our church and convert to Serbian Orthodox" to which she replied /14

14/"I will marry in Ortodox church but won't convert. I am & will remain Catholic. But I agree that children be baptized Orthodox, after their father". So in early 1946 they got married in church for the 2nd time.
All this within 1 year of her liberation from #Auschwitz !
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