European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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,

while my brother had gone away with "Frigio" and the Bedeschi unit. They were faster in getting back together.

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.

I felt fear that night, at least for a short time.

Massacre at Bettola, June 1944

Then there was this episode in La Bettola.

It was a shocking event for our province.

They had killed many people before, even elderly people, but always adults.

This time however they made fun of those who were dead, and also killed some children.

Everybody started to become conscious that it was “time to get rid of them”.

A really large group of people took up arms against them.