European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

since they were finding more and more people who were tired of fascism.

In 1939 my mother died.

She couldn't face the situation any longer when the landlord sent us a letter

telling us that she could not maintain an antifascist family.

I was fourteen and both my parents were dead.

Then we had to leave everything, all our friends and all we had.

We moved to Gazzata di San Martino in Rio.

We were lucky to find a landlord willing to give us a piece of land to farm.

I guess they already knew we were antifascists.

They asked me if I wanted to help them out

in a few tasks to support the Communist party.

They needed somebody who wouldn’t be noticed much.

It was just what I was looking for. I wanted to do something, to help, but I didn’t know how.

They gave me a chance to do something for my family

and to support the antifascist ideals I was starting to believe in.

I started to collect the “soccorso rosso” (red aid).

The little amount of money antifascists could rely on to support those families

whose parents or brothers had to flee after being persecuted by the regime.

It was just natural to me.

After all I had suffered, joining the Communist party meant