European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

I went to my sleeping quarter and was opening a letter when my lieutenant,

a man from Ancona whose name was Santaroni, came over. He was a good man – he gave me a hug later –

who had come to tell me that “somebody needed to speak to me”.

It was three policemen.

The first thing the sergeant did was take the letter I held in my hands.

In the letter, my mother had written the following words:

“You’re lucky to be in the Army, since in the past few days Pattaccini, Boiardi and others were arrested”.

They were all people I used to be implicated with in our activities,

and my poor mother was telling me this openly. But that’s exactly why I was arrested.

I never managed to get that letter back. Wherever I was taken, the letter seemed to follow me.

You see, we all used to deny knowing someone, but I couldn’t, since the names were written on the letter.

Then, one morning, we left from the train station.

I had already been reduced to the ranks:

they had taken everything from me and that day I was slightly shabby and hadn’t shaved.

As we set off, those who were on the railcar with us were curious.

On other occasions, such as the day I was interned,

when there were eighteen of us, we had a whole railcar for ourselves, so there was no one else.

This time, however, the railcar was full, so people began to ask me what I had done,

and I did what I could to have them do so.

I became the star of the railcar, everybody handed me something,