Robert Pioli broke his silence on the horrors of war and imprisonment in Moosberg the day he was notified that his lost dog tags from World War II were found. “There are guys that say they won’t talk about it and that talking about it brings back memories, but you never forget the feeling of a bullet flying this close past your head,” described Pioli, 96, of Devola, with his index finger within an inch of his right temple.

As he told the story, it had been 74 years, five months and one week since he was captured as a prisoner of war. “I’ll never forget listening to what they did to those boys in the civilian prison, those ones with the Star of David on them. All night long we heard them… we were scared that they would come for us next,”he said.