With tuberculosis through fascist prisons.
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Petar Cukon was born in Medulin in 1922 where he finished Italian primary school. He was born in a farming family which was oriented towards Yugoslavism. When he was 5 years old he started helping his parents in cowherding. His father, who fought in Great War had a major influence on him. In 1933 Petar went to island of Krk where he continued his education in boarding school. There, the first simptoms of tuberculosis began to show so he received medical treatment in Sušak hospital. There he met with antifascist ideology, began to read antifascist literature and take part in political debates with his professors and colleagues. He was in Krk when Kingdom of Yugoslavia was attacked and occupied by Axis forces. Krk was occupied by the Italians. Several days after the occupuation he returned home in Medulin. He linked with with leading members of antifascist movement, Mijo Pikunić and Mario Špiler. In order to evade mobilisation to Italian army he enrolled to Faculty of Ljubljana to study medicine in autumn of 1941 and stayed until the summer of 1942. Once again he returned to Medulin and was actively involved in antifascist movement. He organized secret meetings, despached antifascist literature, wrote and distributed flyers and hid his fellow antifascits from police persecution. He was arrested in autumn of 1942 and taken to remand prison in Pula where he was inprisoned until first months of 1943. There he once again received medical treatment for tuberculosis in prison hospital. Together with a group of prisoners he wast transfered to Rome in infamous Regina Coeli prison. Special court for state protection convicted him to 9 years in prison which he was to serve in Castelfranco prison near the city of Modena. In prison he made friends with Italian antifascists. He stayed in Castelfranco until March of 1944 when he was released together with a group of Croats thanks to Red Cross and went to Trieste and Pula. Until the end of the war he was in hospital in Pula where he was sent by medical doctor Egon Maroević to receive treatment for lung tuberculosis. There he witnessed the liberation of the city. After the war he was an alderman in Medulin but he then went to Zagreb to study medicine. After graduation he was employed in hospital in Pula where he worked until his retirement.
