Ugo Fabri

This is a deeply personal post. I'm actually not sure how to end it. I'm still processing, to be honest. So it doesn't read particularly smoothly. Please read part one and part two first.

By now, you know about my strange experience at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. You've also met my grandfather, Ron Fabri, and heard about my Italian-Egyptian ancestry. Here's how it comes together.

In April I visited a relative from the Fabri side of my family. Edwin's daughter, Marianne. She had recently obtained Italian citizenship, and in the process, revisited the Fabri family tree. She recalled a conversation with her father, before his death, where he'd written down some of the cousins he remembered from his youth. He called them the "Genoan Fabris", living in Genoa, Italy.

Having been born and raised in Alexandria, Ron and Edwin had little to do with their Italian cousins. But they knew of them well enough. One of the names Edwin wrote down was Ugo Fabri.

Naturally, we looked Ugo up, hoping he might still be alive, or that we might be able to get in touch with his children.

Ugo Fabri was born in Genoa on January 26, 1915.

By profession, he was a teacher.

In 1943, he was arrested by the Nazis during their occupation of Italy.

On September 22, 1943, he arrived in Dachau concentration camp.

On December 6, he was put on a train. He travelled for three days in an unheated cattle car in temperatures as low as -5°C.

On December 9, he arrived at Mauthausen.

He endured months of forced labour under brutal conditions

He died at 4:00am on April 26, 1944.