European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

SAPs, GAPs and all the partisans attacked during the night

and took a cattle herd of one hundred and ten into the mountains with two cattlemen.

It was great, because of the effort it took.

The Rubbianino road had two hedges three meters tall; it was absolutely dark.

The difficult thing was to get the cattle moving.

The cattlemen taught us to tie four of them together by the horns with some rope.

We put them in front of the group and set off, leaving the others free.

So we made it to Cerredolo dei Coppi.

We knew the partisan paths better than normal roads.

So we made it to Cerredolo dei Coppi with all the cattle.

Getting them there really was a problem.

My brother was also there, people used to call him the tax collector

because of what he ate and how he dressed.

We discussed about where to put the cattle.

We decided to take two or three to each farm.

Farmers made great use of them, using them to plough the land. The Germans had seized petrol

and farmers could not use tractors.

Still, at times, a cow was butchered and we all had some meat to eat,

since there were personnel who distributed it around.

Action for exchange of prisoners