European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

One day, when she didn’t see my father come back, she went to find out

that my father had been sentenced to three days in jail.

She said that my father had to go home because he had a family to support, and she would take his place.

In the end they let them both go, after two days instead of three.

My father had slapped the mayor,

or I should say the podestà, that’s how he was called then.

When they came back home, my sister was really furious.

My father could not work as he wasn’t a member of the fascist party,

and the only one who brought home any money at the time was one of my brothers,

who had been working in the seminary for a long time then and was paid every two weeks.

My little sister also served in Parma. She was nine or ten years old, and went with a woman.

In the morning, she tended to little household affairs, in the afternoon she went with the contessa, who was a very old woman. She worked with the Red Cross.

Then she took her to the hospital. She was crazy about treating the wounded, treating people -- it was a real passion for her. It was because of this she joined the partisans.

And she was a nurse. She did whatever she could. She would give injections and take care of things. In short, she served the people.

She also tried to help the partisans and the people in our village: in the mountains nobody had anything at that time.

My mother, poor woman, was the only one who knew how to give injections, so she was always dashing about, called on by everyone, even at night.

One day my parents told me to go look for my sister. As I got there I ended up in a mop-up.

There was also a wounded man with a shattered leg, so my sister and others told me to go with them.

We went to Quara di Toano, in the mountains, and then moved towards Modena.

But the following day I decided to go back home, because I had to go tell my parents we were safe.