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.. There was always the priest who remembered, which narrated his life, his experiences and suffered thinking that his faithful, with the new regime it is, they had been deprived of the priest, of the sacraments, of functions, and that many churches were closed to worship and used as warehouses.
A few days before Holy Week, they took away the wooden beds from our cells. From then on we slept on the floor, one next to the other. They had placed backpacks along the wall, wrapped, cans. Only the head comrade, the Serbian, he had a cot next to the window. This way he could better control the entire cell. We spent the hours, the days, sitting, lean against the wall. The corridor, in the center of the cell, it had become bigger and was used for taking a walk to stretch one's legs. To sleep, everyone had at their disposal 45 centimeters of space. A priest had taken the measurements of the cell with a string. The bed of the staejesina, water tubs and kibles took up several meters of space. We were forced to sleep tight, clogged; four priests spent the night in the corridor between the two rows, between the feet of others due to lack of space.
We spent Holy Week in retreat: prayer and meditation. We wanted to celebrate the mystery of the Passion with some preached meditation, but in communist prisons it was forbidden to raise one's voice. They wanted to impose a dead silence, but they tolerated the prisoner exchanging a few words with his neighbor.
Easter! The ringing of the bell of a Catholic church announced the Resurrection of Christ to us. Alleluia! We exchanged greetings and Easter wishes. The mass would be celebrated in the late afternoon with an adventurous arrangement. In Stara Gradiska they didn't have dinner on Sundays, but the inmates always had something (pane, lard, onion, cheese) that they received from relatives. Who had nothing, he always met a generous friend willing to share his meager dinner. The Resurrection mass was organized with a religious and… recreational rite. On that day we had to watch out for three characters: or room elder, the Orthodox priest and a newcomer, an Adventist pastor. Two priests had already prepared everything needed for the holy mass in a corner. A towel covered the wine and bread jars. Meanwhile, about ten priests invited the three (the Serbian, the Orthodox and the Adventist) at a chess game and closed them in a circle so that they could only see the chessboard and the small group of people responsible for following the game. The other priests were sitting in their places. Mass began, announced by a few coughs. The elevation was announced by a tap on the floor. Communion was passed with great caution from hand to hand to avoid the suspicious glances of the three who might accuse us. Easter dinner later: we Italians had nothing, but the Croatian priests invited us and each reserved something for us. Serbian too, the Orthodox and the Adventist took advantage of the generosity of the Croatian priests. That day there were the most delicious morsels. Someone also had the Easter dessert received during the visit of relatives. Between mouthfuls we spoke to each other, burning with memories of Easter. Someone wanted to make the characteristic song of his church heard in a low voice; another sang a piece from the Exultet (the song of the Paschal candle), yet another hummed the Alleluia. Little by little we forgot about the strict prison laws, and a baritone voice intoned the melodious Croatian folk song “Regina coeli”. An exciting melody: it starts from the bottom and moves upwards until it composes a strong and sonorous Alleluia. Everyone was singing and many had tears in their eyes. The singing had just finished, when the door suddenly opened. A guard shouted at us: "Tigina" (Silence). But then he calmed down, he closed the door and left. That song had perhaps made him remember a thousand things too. Silence returned to the cell, but every now and then some other song was heard, quietly. Every soft song died late, when the gong had already signaled silence for some time. The sin of the day was not having held the political re-education class.(…).