European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

My father was a foundling, who was adopted by my grandfather, Carlo Zebenini, when he was just a baby.

My father’s name was Reino Quadreri.

My mother was born in Reggio, her name was Valentina Paterni.

Should I go on? Then, there was my brother Gastone, who was born in 1917, and Giulio, born in 1925.

My sister Laura was born in 1926, then it was my turn in 1928.

Finally, Aldo in 1931 and Renzo in 1933.

Luckily my mother was a dressmaker.

We had a house and some land, however, with such a large family, my father had to work as a labourer.

We didn’t have any­thing even before the war, then everything got even worse.

My brothers only attended school until the third grade, which was all that Marola offered.

I was the only one who went on to the fifth grade, but in order to do so I had to go to Carpineti.

We stayed at home; my brothers worked occasionally, often as farm-hands for other families.

My older brother worked as a bricklayer in the seminary for ten years, before he was drafted into the army when he was 20.

My father worked whenever he could find work.

He only had a regular job in the summer, when he left for almost two months to go thresh the fields.

You can still see those machines around the villages during the threshing season,

and he was very good with them, so they would go work for almost two months.

My father worked for this family every summer for 42 years,

and that was the only regular salary throughout the year.

At times he would also manage to work for a couple of weeks, once or twice a year.