European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

The Germans had already officially announced that those who helped soldiers

and dodgers to escape would be sentenced to confinement in concentration camps or executed.

What we were facing wasn’t a joke.

Torelli went on: “You must try to keep everything that a clandestine army might need,

because we want to get people to fight to send away the Germans and the fascists”.

We started to take things out.

Before I talk about this, I will tell an episode which was really crucial

for my decision to go on and take part in the Liberation struggle.

Three or four days after September 8th, the air-raid warning went off.

We fled on our bicycles.

After a while we went back home, since we didn’t hear anything and the warning had stopped.

As I arrived at the beginning of Dalmazia street, as we always fled towards Codemondo or the Canalina,

the SS were standing in front of the houses.

In front of my house there was a space we called the “palace”,

where we used to put tables and chairs in the summer.

As I got there, a German unit with a machine gun told me to stop.

I replied: “It’s my house!”

The soldier just told me: “Halt, raus!”.

I didn’t understand any German, but “raus” meant go away, leave.

I told him: “That’s my house; I have to fix dinner for my brothers”.