A brave woman who refused to accept that she had to speak Italian when Austria lost South Tyrol to the fascists after the First World War has said she wants to get her Austrian citizenship back before she dies.
The area where she lives was taken from Austria and handed to Italy with the Treaty of London in 1915 in order to persuade the latter to enter the war on the side of the Allies.
Until 1918, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Princely County of Tyrol, but this almost completely German-speaking territory was occupied by Italy at the end of the war in November 1918 and was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy in 1919.
