European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Difficulties of partisan-life

I guess it was because I thought the war would be over soon.

Then once I started doing this it became something I had to do, some sort of duty,

just like taking care of house chores. It was something I really liked to do.

I did it with such enthusiasm that I wouldn’t even feel the distance I would cover by foot, from the Via Emilia,

leaving San Pietro in the morning, all the way to Secchia, where I arrived at night with bloody feet.

I was wearing English boots that the shoemaker had adapted to my feet.

Even so, once I got there, I couldn’t take it anymore because my feet were hurting badly.

After I completed my task, he would hand me a pair of scissors,

telling me that my nails were probably too long, and he suggested that I soak my feet to feel better.

I would then go to a house where two elderly women used to live, and I would finally sleep there in a real bed.

The following day they cooked polenta twice, for lunch and dinner.

One was made with chestnuts, the other one with cornmeal. I really felt well there.

Sometimes other girls would come, but he always wanted me to stay there.

But my poor sister had to sleep in huts and sheds the whole time, wherever she could.

At first I asked why they asked me to do this or that,

but then I realized that it was necessary, that it was my duty to do something.

For example, when we were kids, if a farmer was making hay my father would tell us to go help him.

“It might start raining”, he would say, and then he would go pick up some rope, while we all went to help the farmer.

Battle-name; first activities as a dispatch-rider