European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

from a German division with armoured vehicles, artillery, small airplanes, special forces.

Maybe it wasn’t even right to fight back as we did,

since guerrilla means attacking and withdrawing, coming back and so on.

That time however it was decided to fight back jointly. We suffered many casualties in the end.

Then the Germans took away more than a thousand men:

all those who were able to work, and I think also a few women, were sent to Germany.

That time there was a complete disbandment.

After that, the Germans left,

their division withdrew, but the garrisons on road 63 remained until the end of the war.

We slowly recovered, difficultly,

and I remember I stayed home around ten days because of this, helping my father,

Sure, there were moments we were afraid,

but actually, it was more about being irresponsible than afraid.

When I think about it now, I realize that we could have done so much more without that much efforts and dangers.

I’ve been afraid one night because I had never heard this German machine gun shoot,

they called it “raganella” (tree frog): it could shoot so fast, so many bullets.

That was really the only time my heart was pounding.

Later I realized it was quite distant, but at the moment I thought it was there, a few steps away,

this nasty sound in the silence of the night.