European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

The Duce had also decided that large families were to be awarded with a certificate.

Even more so for our family since there were six boys and two girls.

This certificate had to be displayed at home, so that everybody could see

that Mussolini had acknowledged these families

who had generated manpower for the nation to prepare for war.

When I was seven I suffered my first humiliation.

My mother didn’t have enough money to buy me the uniform of the “Piccole Italiane”.

So I couldn’t take part in the gymnastics event, as I had dreamed about.

I never found out if we really didn’t have any money

or rather my mother didn’t want me to wear that uniform.

After the display they handed out an Easter egg to all the participants.

I had never seen one before. It was amazing, with its shiny coloured paper.

The teacher handed out an egg to all the children while I was left out. I wasn’t worth it.

Can you imagine the despair of a seven-year-old girl, as she walked home thinking

that she was different because of such a pointless motive? Because she didn’t have a white shirt and a black skirt?

After I had a son and a family of my own,

I told him what I had gone through when I was seven.

So every year at Easter, he brings me a huge Easter egg.

Liberation of Reggio Emilia

After we had blown up the bridges we were to go to Reggio with our unit,