Fortitude

David Doyle

Description

Fortitude is the real-life story of Boris Rus, a young native of Fiume, Italy (now Rijeka, Croatia). This chronicle recalls the experiences of his experiences of unorthodox & revolutionary warfare against German and Axis Powers. The story takes a dramatic U-turn from resistance and offence to one of survival in the concentration camp that fathered them all, Dachau. What comes next, nobody could have foresaw.

Sujets

• Historical
• Lettres et linguistique
• Segunda Guerra Mundial
• Biography
• Internment
• World War II
• Autobiography
• Life
• Seconde Guerre mondiale

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris AU
• Date de parution: 08 décembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669832690
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

BORIS RUS - FORTITUDE
 
 
A LIKE ENDURING
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
David Doyle
 
Copyright © 2022 by David Doyle.
Library of Congress Control Number:
2022920655
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-3271-3

Softcover
978-1-6698-3270-6

eBook
978-1-6698-3269-0
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 11/03/2022
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
AU TFN: 1 800 844 927 (Toll Free inside Australia)
AU Local: [phone] ([phone] from outside Australia)
www.Xlibris.com.au
799292
 
If we die in silence
as our enemies want,
the world will never
know what man
was capable of doing,
what he is still
capable of doing
 
Primo Levi
CONTENTS
About the Author
Foreword
Preface
About Boris
About This Book
Dedication
ACT I: In the Beginning Death of the Father
Boris the Auxiliary
Back to the Front
Regaining the Trust of the Partisans
A Time for War: Baptism of Fire
The Harder the Conflict, the More Glorious the Triumph. (Thomas Paine)
Time to Leave
Coroneo Prison (Risiera Di San Sabba)
ACT II: Dachau
The Devil’s Playhouse: The Descent to Hell
Arrival at Dachau
Dachau: Life at the Camp
Dachau: Arbeit Macht Frei
Dachau Politics: Playing The Game
Evacuation of Dachau
Liberation
Leaving Dachau: Heading Home
ACT III: Tito-Slavia Devil Take the Hindmost
Yugoslavia: A Socialist Paradise? July 1945
A Settlement Reached: Trieste Crisis
Brotherhood and Unity – Military Service
National Service: Put up and Shut up
Service and Servitude
ACT IV: A Time to Flee: The Refugee Struggle
Fleeing Yugoslavia
Danger Man
Finding My Family
Return to San Sabba, but Not as I Knew It
Salvation and an Awkward Conversation
Seabound: The Fairsea
ACT V: Australia, The Land of Milk and Honey
Arrival: Our New Home
Epilogue
Bibliography
Blurb
Author’s Note
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
D AVID FRANCIS DOYLE is the maternal grandson of Boris Vito Rus. David is a passionate family man; he has a beautiful wife of Portuguese ancestry and two beautiful children, a boy and a girl. He is a proud lifelong resident of the Macarthur Region in the southwestern suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, being proactive in the local community, both personally and through his regular employment.
While working in the banking, insurance, and bancassurance industry, David was in a severe motor vehicle accident. After several years of intense physical and mental recovery, David was forced to undertake significant lower back surgery by a renowned neurosurgeon. After about a year of intense convalescing, he was medically retired. During this medical sabbatical from mainstream employment, David struggled to find a purpose.
It wasn’t until a long-awaited trip to ancestral Europe, where David met the family for the first time. It was also when David visited the Dachau Concentration Camp and Risiera San Sabba, where his grandfather was held prisoner from the tender age of fourteen.
This experience proved to be moving, and a turning point in David’s life, from the perspective of better understanding his grandfather, and would set in motion a year of intense learning. It was a moment where he could step back and appreciate what happened in these places and know that if people can survive and thrive after these experiences, then anyone can prosper in their given situation, that anyone can do anything, just as his grandfather had.
When at Dachau, David took the opportunity to go through every exhibit (as it turned out, he even inadvertently visited the hospital wing where Boris had once stayed). It was a bitterly cold Bavarian day, and there was heavy snow everywhere. This was January 2019. Here, he spontaneously decided to take the opportunity to walk around the camp without a jacket, without gloves, and with no hat. This point was to get a slightly more genuine understanding of what it must have been like for his nonno and other men from Dachau and other camps within the Third Reich. Of course, walking around the camp filled with friendly albeit sombre faces, minus the guards and capos, and with a full belly after a warm lunch, it didn’t come close to experiencing what they experienced. Still, one could get the impression of just how horrible an experience this must have been. As you could imagine, David got many strange looks and thankfully didn’t get a cold. This was the catalyst that started David on the journey to find out what it must have been like to do this day in and day out, under horrible conditions, without proper food, water, or medication and under the constant fear of disease and torture; loss of life, limb, and dignity.
It was this same experience that compelled him to return home to speak with his grandfather, ask what happened, and get his permission to write down his stories and memorialise them forever with ink and paper. This project started with the vision of making a collection of Boris’s stories and experiences to become a family heirloom, one that Boris’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can read to learn what happened to him, what he had to endure, how his personal story fits into the big picture of World War II, and what made Boris “ Boris.” As the project went on and grew, it became clear it would be more than just a family PDF for future generations to know what this great man did.
While reciting the history, Nonno Boris told stories he had never told anyone else, stories that had been suppressed after decades of mismanagement and misdiagnosis. Boris and David’s personal relationship grew considerably. As both suffered from PTSD (for very different reasons, of course), a mutual understanding grew that some things cannot be described. However, David hopes to have done it justice in this memoir.
Because of this book, their relationship further cemented, and both came to enjoy their regular visits. Both knew this was a labour of love, and they both hope you find the stories engaging and meaningful.
And to think that this journey of discovery was sparked by a simple visit to the Dachau and San Sabba prison camps.
FOREWORD
I N 1992 BORIS asked me to write his “trilogy”, he felt it was important for his story to be told. As much as I regret that I was not the author of his book I am pleased that it was David who was. They worked on the book at a time when Boris was desperately lonely, and they both enjoyed the time they got to spend together.
In a world which is constantly challenged by the horrors and aftermath of war, there are millions of people who have an amazing story of survival to share. I am certain many people will relate to Boris’s story; an ordinary person, born at a time and place which posed extraordinary challenges and required difficult decisions to be made. Boris was born on 14 June 1929 in Rijeka which was kno wn as Fiume for a time after WWI. While we have heard many stories of the tragedies of WWII and the various concentration and work camps, this story relates to a part of WWII that has not been explored as much as others. I am proud of Boris for all he endured, he never displayed any hatred or racism, he lived his life as best he could with an enduring passion for his family. Despite all of his challenges and disappointments, he lived a strong, active, and healthy life, he overcame his war injuries, colon cancer, lung cancer and remained active until the last few days of his life when he became bedbound and unconscious. On Christmas morning 2019 he was breathing with difficulty and as I caressed his forehead and spoke to him, his breathing softened as he listened to me speak to him. Knowing his insecurities, I named every person in his life whom he loved and reassured him that he was loved and appreciated by everyone. When I stopped talking his breathing became heavy again. He died shortly after my last visit with him. I think of him every day.
I would love to share with you that my father was a kind and loving man, loyal and protective of his family. In hindsight, his shortcomings were a by-product of undiagnosed trauma. Many families likely suffered the adverse effects of a traumatised person without ever realising the reason for the behaviour. When he initially sought medical advice for his PTSD he was told that there were two options, electro-shock therapy or to drink alcohol. He was not willing to undergo electro-shock therapy and he did, like many people drink alcohol, but in my view, not to excess.
The more recent understandings of the traumas suffered by soldiers is a remarkable growth in human understanding. It emphasises that we, as a community, need to be more understanding of veterans of conflict such as war. The veterans and their families need to be appreciated and supported appropriately so that they and their families can better deal with the harmful effects of the horrors of war.
Australia is still The Lucky Country.