When the Fascist troops of Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia and Emperor Haile Selassie was forced into exile in May 1936, what were the experiences of both young and adult people in the capital, Addis Ababa, and in other towns across the country? How did they cope with the profound disruption? Beyond the written records produced by Italian authorities and other European observers, what were the Ethiopian perspectives of the time? In a series of articles, Ethiopia Observer will feature firsthand accounts drawn from the memoirs of Ethiopian youths of the time, illuminating the anguish, quiet resistance, and daily realities of life in occupied Addis Ababa.

One such witness was Tekletsadik Mekuria (1913-2000), who was in his early twenties during the Italian occupation. This young man—who would later emerge as a prominent historian, civil servant, and diplomat—recalled and chronicled these turbulent years in his Amharic memoir, Ye Hiwote Tarik (My Life Story), published posthumously on November 25, 2015.

Born on 11 September 1913 in Assagirt Sar Amba, a small village in Ankober, Shoa to a family of clergymen, Tekletsadik moved to Addis Ababa with his father at the age of six. A year later, he began his studies at the school of Rufael Church, and by the age of eleven he was able to recite the Psalms of David, demonstrating remarkable aptitude. He later studied for four months at the Alliance Française, where he received his first exposure to modern education and acquired a basic knowledge of French.

From the age of fifteen, he worked for several years as a note-taker for a landlord. He married at nineteen in a marriage arranged by his father. A year later, he enrolled at the prestigious Teferi Mekonen School to continue his studies, with instruction conducted in French. The school was closed a few months before the arrival of the Italians, and he went to work at the Berhan ena Selam printing press. There he addressed mail containing publications sent to Europe in an effort to alert the world to the imminent Italian attack.

As the Italian entry into the capital became imminent, a friend invited Tekletsadik and his wife to take refuge in his home. They accepted and moved into the friend’s concrete house, a stark contrast to their own dwelling with its thatched roof. From there, Tekletsadik and his older friend watched young people streaming toward Arada, a neighborhood later named Piassa, to loot cloth shops—a vivid indication that law and order had completely collapsed.“Wosene, my friend, who was older in both age and maturity, would reflect on the vanity of people as he watched the rioting,” he wrote. The looting and rioting continued for two days.

“When Emperor Haile Selassie headed to Djibouti on May 3, 1936, the commander-in-chief of the Italian forces, Marshal Badoglio, entered Addis Ababa. During this time, I neglected attending the missionary church; instead, I focused on protecting myself and was filled with anger and a sense of menace at the arrival of the Italians,” he wrote.

The missionary church he referred to was the Bible Churchmen’s Missionary Society, led by the Englishman Alfred Buxton, who sought, through Bible classes and preaching, to promote reform within the Orthodox Church.Tekletsadik Mekuria explains that he began attending the Society a few months before the invasion, when Qes Badima Yalew, an ex-Orthodox priest, brought him there, telling him that Buxton was seeking someone to copy Aleka Taye handwritten Book of Religion. Although that task was ultimately assigned to another person, Tekletsadik continued attending the mission, and became an active member of the group. Other prominent members included Haile Gebrel Negero, Abebe Gemeda, Worku, and Temesgen Gebre—the latter remembered both as a resistance fighter against the Italians and as the author of the first modern short story in Amharic literature.

Tekletsadik Mekuria’s memoir vividly illuminates the mood and atmosphere in Addis Ababa following the conquest of the capital by the invading forces. After a few days, when conditions had stabilized and the gunshots had ceased, he recalled venturing out with a friend to observe the state of the city.

“On the way, we came across Italian soldiers marching in large numbers from the lower palace to the higher palace, near Emperor Haile Selassie Hospital. As instructed, my friend and I greeted them by raising our right hands.

Upon reaching Arada, however, the scale of destruction became unmistakable. The streets bore grim signs of devastation, with swollen bodies lying along the roads and shop doors broken open and looted. Broken forks and plates were scattered everywhere. It looked as if a fierce battle had raged here,” he wrote.

“After witnessing all this, in the weeks that followed, I went to Mr. Buxton and attended prayers. Having never before seen such rioting or the collapse of a government, and with no other work or activities to occupy my time, I devoted a considerable part of my days to prayer and preaching.

Mr. Buxton, in particular, gave us daily Bible lessons, and during this period I became increasingly drawn to spiritual matters, practicing with growing intensity until I myself began to preach,” Tekletsadik chronicles.

“Beyond this, the fall of the Ethiopian government surprised, saddened, and deeply disappointed me, and I even entertained the idea of embracing a monastic life,” he says. “I was at the mission by chance, a matter of circumstance. Had there been someone with a military spirit to urge me to take up arms and perform patriotic acts, I would have done so,” he added.

The memoir is not a record of his daily activities and offers little detail about the texture of life during the occupation. Yet he manages to enlighten us—for example, how he survived without work, rented a room with the financial help of the mission, and welcomed an old friend, Girazmatch Kebede, who came to stay with him along with his wife.

Under the guidance of the Mission, he began attending the Alliance and took Italian courses. He doesn’t remember how he got a French–Italian dictionary, but he managed to teach himself some Italian.

The attempt on Rodolfo Graziani, the massacre, targeting of elites and clergy

“One day, while I was chatting with Girazmatch Kebede, I suddenly heard gunshots and a commotion outside,” he wrote. “Curious, we went out and saw a man running past our house. We asked him what had happened. He told us that the French and British had launched an attack from Djibouti and Aden. He kept running. But since there had been no such news the previous week, I knew he was making it up, and could only shake my head at his story. We went back into our house and stayed inside, closing the doors.”

But it was not over. We sense something significant had occurred on that day.

“While we were inside with the doors closed, there was a knock at the door. Some frightened neighborhood women were also in the house, and they all rushed to the bedroom. But I, as the homeowner, could not run away, so I calmly opened the door,” he narrated.

“Two Italian soldiers stood there—one carrying a firearm and the other a bomb—and entered the house,” showing the seriousness of the situation. “They asked me if I had a weapon. I said no. They went to the bedroom and asked who was there, pointing at Girazmatch Kebede. I told them he was my brother, and that the other women were my wife and my sister-in-law.

“They asked me to open the cupboard, where books I had bought at different times were kept. One of them then asked if I was a priest, and I said yes. They even searched the pillow but found nothing. I had a feeling they were looking for money.

They put their weapons back into their pockets. When they were a little more relaxed, I asked them what had happened. One of them said, “Graziani ferito.” I sensed that “ferito” meant something bad, but I didn’t know whether it meant wounded or dead. After they left, I looked it up in the dictionary and understood that he had been wounded.”

Following an assassination attempt on the Italian viceroy, Rodolfo Graziani, Fascist Blackshirt militias carried out a three-day campaign of reprisals. In what historians describe as an orgy of violence, an estimated between several thousand and as many as 20,000 Ethiopians were killed in Addis Ababa and other parts of the country.

Drawing on his own limited personal experience, Tekle Tsadik Mekuria recounts these events in a distinctive voice, providing a firsthand account of the massacre and its aftermath.

“After Graziani was wounded, we grew tired of staying at home from Friday to Sunday. On Sunday morning, we finally ventured outside, though we did not leave the compound. As Kebede and I talked on the veranda, we saw two Italians approaching. Kebede suggested that we go inside, but I refused, thinking it would look as though we were running away, as if we had done something wrong,” he wrote. “Then they called for us to come. We stepped off the veranda and walked toward them. One of them pulled a stick from the wooden fence and ordered us to walk ahead. They marched us to the municipality. When we arrived, they searched our pockets, took our watches, and told us to go inside. Inside, we found nobles, civil servants, and merchants, some of them bearing the marks of having been beaten. Around eleven o’clock, trucks arrived in waves, and they loaded us onto them forty at a time, and our journey to Gefersa was begun. We didn’t know where we were going or what they would do to us. Among the guardians watching us was an Eritrean, and one of us asked him what they would do to us. He replied, “You know it—why are you asking me?” His reply seemed like confirmation of the fear that had been growing inside all of us—that we were going to be killed. Panic spread among us. There was a monk among us, and everyone turned to him. Before what we thought would be our final moments, we asked him to give us absolution. “Don’t be afraid, my children. May God absolve you,” he said. In this state of fear, we arrived in Gefersa. The vehicles stopped, and we thought they were going to kill us there. But after a moment the vehicles turned and continued on toward Addis Ababa, to Fil Wuha. We said they would execute us at Fil Wuha, whispering to each other in dread. But instead, they drove us to the palace and brought us to the criminal prison. Inside, we heard gunshots, and we whispered among ourselves, “Those who arrived before us are being executed.”

After a while, everyone climbed down from the trucks. Italian soldiers stood in a line, sticks and whips in their hands, welcoming them with blows as they passed, striking them like snakes before forcing them inside, Tekle-Tsadik Mekuriya recounts. He stepped inside and lay down, as all the others before him had done. To his relief, he saw that the prisoners lying on the ground were not dead. Still, he and the others spent a sleepless night. In the morning light he noticed more prisoners stretched out on the ground and, toward the gates, wires strung across the entrance. During the day, military officers arrived and ordered them to stand against the wall with their hands raised. Machine guns were trained on them from left to right. “We thought they were going to finish us then. We pushed and shoved, each of us trying not to be the one to take the first bullets,” he wrote. But the officers eventually left. Bread loaves were handed out, though they were very salty, which only made the prisoners thirstier.

On the third day, the prisoners lay exhausted, parched with thirst. According to the author, people were so thirsty that some sucked the moisture from the roots of weeds, scraping at the ground in search of anything damp. Others begged for urine to drink. In the evening, three barrels were brought in, and firefighters filled them with a pump. The men surged toward the barrels at once, pressing and jostling, desperate for a single gulp of water.

But Tekle-Tsadik was too tired and lay down on the man he had befriended. The Italian soldiers, carrying sticks and truncheons to punish anyone who disobeyed, called out that there was enough for everyone and allowed those at the front to drink. Yet those behind pushed forward anyway, jostling and scrambling to reach the barrels. The soldiers lashed at them from behind, but few paid any heed. Those who could reached forward, desperate to scoop the water with their hands. Others pressed pieces of thick cotton fabric into service, soaking them up to drink later, unwilling to let a single drop go to waste. Some of them had to buy water from those who had collected more, including the narrator, who said he paid two birr.

They remained in Fit Ber Criminal Prison for eight or ten days. Then young officers appeared, set up tables, and began registering the prisoners, asking each to state their name and official title. “You will all be freed and can return to your work,” they said, “but only if you provide your true titles.”

The person who came with Tekle-Tsadik gave his first name, Kebede, and his title, Girazmatch. Those who held titles were separated and assembled, while others—including Tekle Tsadik—were released. Later, he heard that the titled men had been taken into the forest and shot. His fellow missionary, Temesgen Gebre, who had been imprisoned alongside him, had changed his name to avoid being killed if the Italians discovered he was a pastor, he later told him after liberation.

The Danane concentration camp

Tekle-Tsadik Mekuriya left prison and returned home, rejoining his wife, who was pregnant with their second child. He resumed his visits to the mission and continued a life of prayer.

In time, however, those who frequented the mission were identified and their names passed to the Italian authorities. Arrests followed at different locations, and the detainees were brought to Feres Bet, near Genete Leul Palace.

After ten days, they were dispersed: some were sent to the Italian island of Asinara, others to Nakura in Eritrea while another group—including Tekle-Tsadik—was deported to the Danane concentration camp in Somalia. “We were given flour for the journey, but we had no means of preparing it, and most of the time we went hungry,” he wrote. “After many stops and 17 days, we arrived in Danane, near Mogadishu.” He said they were subjected to forced labor, including carrying wood from distant places, fetching water, and constructing roads. “Then I was made supervisor of forty people who carried jerricans of water, and I was relieved of all manual labor.”

Soon after, a plague outbreak raged through the area. Many prisoners contracted the disease and died, and Tekle-Tsadik himself fell ill and nearly perished. The dead were buried hastily in the sand, but strong winds later swept through, uncovering the bodies.

During his year-and-a-half incarceration, most of what they ate consisted of dry galletta—the hardtack biscuit used by the Italian army and macaroni, without oil or butter.

In the fertile Janaale area, Italian settlers who had grown wealthy from large-scale banana plantations petitioned the Fascist administration to use Ethiopian prisoners as labor on their estates.

Each banana concession owner was assigned forty Ethiopian laborers under the supervision of a single overseer. Tekle-Tsadik served as one such overseer and was paid 250 lire per month. Although the area was rich and fertile, it was infested with snakes, and several workers died from snakebites, he wrote.

On weekends, Tekle-Tsadik was allowed to travel to Merca, a coastal town in Somalia, where he could stay during the day and return in the evening. There, he bought Italian newspapers to follow current events, to follow the fate of his country. The seller sold him the papers, believing they were for his Italian boss. He read them in secret, as the Fascists did not allow him to read. He learned that in 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain visited Fascist Italy, met Benito Mussolini, and even toasted Italy’s conquests in Ethiopia and Albania—a policy of appeasement that broke his heart, especially since Britain was hosting Emperor Haile Selassie. But after a while, he returned to Danane, where the dry galletta and macaroni awaited him. He was also suffering from severe constipation. In the meantime, clemency was granted to them, and he was able to return to his country.

Main image: Tekletsadik Mekuria at the age of twenty.