The priests in the Tito concentration camps
Report from the Federici Study Center
A few days after the day of remembrance of the foibe and the exodus of the Julian populations, Istrian and Dalmatian, we publish some pages taken from the volume "Survivors of the deportations in Yugoslavia" (YY.YY, Bruno Fachin Editor, 1997). This is the testimony of father Albino Simpliciano Gomiero: “They had come to pick me up from the convent”, especially the paragraph: “The clandestine mass”.
(…) The first Sunday of Lent (23 February 1948) I woke up early. I heard my neighbor on the right, Father Chresus, he was praying. He was lying on his side with his back to me. After the alarm signal I saw him handing something to the others in a white handkerchief. In the handkerchief there was a box, everyone took something and put it in their mouth. Father Kreso passed it on to me too. “If you want to communicate…”. Communion! Christ in prison! The Lord in prison with us! The box contained pieces of bread. Father Kreso had celebrated. "Attention! Don't let the Serbian sobni starjesina see you, and also pay attention to the Orthodox priest!”. I received Holy Communion and passed the Blessed Sacrament to the others. Father Eterovic explained to me later, the polyglot who studied in Jerusalem, who did this every Sunday, when they received genuine bread and raisins from them: in turn, a priest celebrated mass by consecrating the wine extracted from raisins. No sacred vestments and candles. The chalice was a jar of preserves, the pyx, a small box; the missal, some pages of toilet paper which reported in full the Madonna's mass “Hello, Holy Parent", written in pencil. How much sadness invaded our hearts when the sound of a bell announcing the day of the Lord reached our ears.. Read More


by Editorial Staff
Reporting of BastaBugie editorial team
Of Fabrizio Vincenti
Of Mario Porrini
Of Alberto Negri, 
Written and reported by Antonio Amorosi