Terzo Drusin

Terzo Drusin was born in the province of Udine, in Manzano, on 28 January 1913, to his father Antonio and his mother Eugenia Passans, the youngest of ten siblings.
He attended primary school up to the fourth grade, but had to leave school, despite being a very gifted pupil, to help his family with farm work. Four years later, as a result of an accident while cleaning the stable, he lost three fingers on one hand and had one leg amputated just above the knee. He then resumed his studies and, in 1934, enrolled at the “Cattolica” University of Milan, where he graduated in Pedagogy.
Having become a teacher, at the end of 1943 he was transferred to the “Guido Monti” middle school in Rorai Grande and settled with his family in Pordenone.

During his university years he came into contact with the Guelf Action Movement, which supported the struggle against Fascism in the name of Christian-social principles. His political commitment led him, after 8 September 1943, to join the Ippolito Nievo Partisan Brigade under the nom de guerre “Alberto,” first in the Natisone Valleys and later in the Pordenone area.
His intelligence and cultural background made him a point of reference for partisan propaganda: he was very active in the underground press and also in the organization and execution of actions in the field. From 1944 onward his activity took place mainly in the Lower Pordenone area, where roundups and reprisals were a daily occurrence.
On 2 December 1944 he was captured following a denunciation by the Vettorini gang at Vallon di Cimpello and taken to the Pordenone prison.

The crowd at the ceremony for the unveiling of the plaque in honor of Terzo Drusin at the Centro Studi of Pordenone (1965).

From there he was transferred daily to the Casermette, where he was subjected to brutal torture in a futile attempt to extract information from him.
On 13 December he was taken by the Black Brigade of Angelo Leschiutta, which used him as a warning to the civilian population, beating and clubbing him in the squares of several towns in the Lower Pordenone area, before finally throwing him from the Tremeacque bridge on 17 December. His body, recovered from the Livenza River at Torre di Mosto (Venice), was identified only many years later.
His funeral was held with solemn honors on 25 April 1965.

The locality of Tremeacque (Prata di Pordenone), where the waters of the Meduna and the Livenza meet, with the two bridges.

Family Register, showing that at the time of his arrest the Drusin family lived in Viale Grigoletti.