European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Three or four days after September 8th, the air-raid warning went off.

We fled on our bicycles.

After a while we went back home, since we didn’t hear anything and the warning had stopped.

As I arrived at the beginning of Dalmazia street, as we always fled towards Codemondo or the Canalina,

the SS were standing in front of the houses.

In front of my house there was a space we called the “palace”,

where we used to put tables and chairs in the summer.

As I got there, a German unit with a machine gun told me to stop.

I replied: “It’s my house!”

The soldier just told me: “Halt, raus!”.

I didn’t understand any German, but “raus” meant go away, leave.

I told him: “That’s my house; I have to fix dinner for my brothers”.

Again, he replied: “Raus, schnell, schnell!” and pointed the gun at me.

I quietly went back with my bicycle and met Maria, who had the same thing happening to her.

It’s not the fear of the gun,

it’s realizing that you’re absolutely nothing to them.

These men in uniform, who looked like cockroaches,

who spoke a language you didn’t know because they weren’t even from your own country,

not only could keep you from going inside your home, but also had the power to kill you.

You were nothing to them; you were less than a bug.