European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

As I walked in, others were already inside.

I started to explain to them how we were lucky that the number of socialist countries was growing,

thanks to the Soviet Union – they had just occupied Sweden, Norway and Lithuania at that time – and how great the Russians were.

Come morning, a tiny man called me over and asked me where I was from.

I told him I was from Reggio Emilia, so he told me:

“Are you really sure about the things you were saying last night?”.

I thought he was crazy.

He was a professor from Milan, whose name was Lonato. We were in great terms after that.

With us, there were also prisoners from Parma.

I’m not saying I liked it there, because it was always confinement.

However I was younger than the others, and I understood that this was an advantage.

I was with a man called Bonini, from Villa Seta, who was around forty-five years old

and had a wife at home, renting a small farm and taking care of the kids:

that was a lot harder, but he always managed to take care of things rather easily.

Then I finally came home from confinement.

I had been given some documents which I was supposed to bring to the police.

When I went there, I knocked on the door (we already knew how it worked)

and the person inside asked me who I was.

As I replied “Porta”, he told me to go out.

I knocked again, and he sent me out again, for three times.