Granai della Memoria

Interviewed in 2011, Luigo Velenzano, nicknamed Gino, born in 1920, talks about his intense life, full of dramatic moments but also of success. Piedmontese, great grandchild of the fascist Head of State Pietro Badoglio, grown and educated in Turin and an Italian Air Force member, was arrested at Rome and sent, as his brother, to the Nazi labour and extermination camps in Germany and Austria: Dachau, Mauthausen and Scwechat.

His memories of Pietro Badoglio take an important part in the interview. His personal encounters with him and those that he had heard from his uncle Nino, his father's brother and so first nephew, that as a soldier lived by his side a great part of the General Badoglio life, first in the war in Africa and after with Mussolini, Eisenhower, Churchill and others during the 2nd World War. Gino tells how his relative played a role in his surviving the SS in the most terrible moments in the camps, together with humanitarian encounters that saved his life, and also talks about the unforgetabble liberation day in the camp.

After the war's end, his passion for cars took him to work with some of the most charismatic Gianni Agenlli, Gianni Lancia, the family Maserati and others, and take part in mythic national and international championships as the Targa Florio, the Mille Miglie, the 24 hours of Le Mans and so many others in the past century. His brother's death in a race in 1955 meant the end of his sports career. Also the cinema golden age in italy played a part in his late life, that he evaluates, with an touching serenity, a life of fortune.