This Secret Diary is so secret that it isn't a diary at all. I say this partly in order to correct the title of the book and partly to allay the misgivings of anyone whom it happens to antagonize.

It is not a diary in the sense of being a day-by-day account of what the writer thought and did, one of the usual compilations in which he regards himself as the center and fulcrum of the universe.

I did have the intention of compiling a diary of this kind, and for two years I jotted down everything I did or didn't do, everything I thought and saw, including what I should have thought, even if I didn't think it.  As a result, I brought home with me three bulky notebooks, containing enough material to fill a volume of two thousand pages. As soon as I got there, I put a new ribbon in the typewriter and set about deciphering and amplifying my notes. Out of the two years I did not skip a single day.

It was a tiresome and feverish job but, at the end, my diary was complete. I reread it attentively, polished it up and tried to give it a good tempo. Then I had it retyped and, after all this was done, I put it away with the intention of never looking at it again. This, I believe, is one of the wisest acts of my whole career as a writer.

~~~~~

It came about that, like millions and millions of others, I was involved in the most recent of the messes into which out unfortunate world has got itself. I don't remember exactly how it went. Almost every participant in a war has so much to do in the small sector allotted to him that he cannot keep himself informed of the overall picture ...

As an Italian, I found myself an ally of the Germans at the start and at the end their prisoner. In 1943 the Anglo-Americans bombed my house; in 1945 they freed me from prison and gave me cans of soup and condensed milk. As far as I am concerned, that is the whole story. I had no more influence than a nutshell tossed about on the ocean, and I emerged without ribbons or medals on my chest. I emerged as a victor, however, because I came through the cataclysm without hatred in my soul and I made the discovery of a precious friend, myself ...

Even in prison, I remained a stubborn native of the province of Emilia, on the lower reaches of the Po valley; I gritted my teeth and said to myself: "I won't die, even if they kill me!" And I didn't die, either, probably only because they didn't kill me, but at any rate I didn't die. I stayed alive in spirit as well as in body, and kept right on working.  I wrote not only notes for my diary, but also a number of things for everyday camp use.

Indeed, I spent a good part of my time going from hut to hut and reading aloud the sort of thing of which the present book will furnish examples. Pieces which were intended at the time only for camp consumption and not at all for publication in the world outside the Lager. And yet, now that years have gone by, these pieces are the only ones that seem to me to have some validity ...

This material is what you might call "authorized." I thought it out and wrote it in the Lager; most of it I read aloud a dozen or more times, and it won general approval. The only part of this book which has not been passed upon by my camp comrades is the Epilogue, which I published in a weekly paper, after our return home. The rest has been cleared for transmission.

~~~~~

To my camp comrades I am No. 6865, and I count as only one man. Among those melancholy wastes, everyone shed his protective covering and all other external appurtenances; being left naked, he showed himself for what he really was. The big name that so-and-so had in the outside world, or his high rank in the army, didn't matter; everyone counted only as much as he was intrinsically worth. Every one of us was a single unit, and he was judged solely by performance.

Our feet were planted solidly on the ground.  For almost two years we lived in a true democracy, made up of men who were honest and true. Now many of us play an important part in the public and private life of a democracy that is not a democracy, and in which honesty is notably lacking. Perhaps our old comrades can never again be the honest fellows they once were, because environment makes the man. It is for their benefit that I am publishing this book, in order to give them a whiff of the fresh air we used to breathe together.

~~~~~

... As for the others, those who didn't share our humble adventure, I don't know what effect these pages will have upon them.  Perhaps they will be bored. But then, in those days, I was bored, too. Perhaps the idea of the book, at least, may amuse them, the idea of a humorist's account of his prison. Anyhow, here it is, ready for my twenty-three faithful readers. If it's not all right, then next time I'm interned, I'll try to do better.