European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Grandi, a lawyer, was our great accomplice in Viano.

He had prepared a wonderful lunch for our whole “Gufo Nero” unit and also for the English who were with us.

We were a very large group of people.

Before we finished eating they asked me to go find out if we could move forward.

You could still hear many shots, the Germans and the fascists were still around armed and were trying to resist.

We were quite worried. We had lunch there, then I left.

That’s why I’m not in the picture the boys took when they arrived in Scandiano.

I was walking ahead in order to see if there were any dangers and eventually go back to inform the others.

But there were no problems at all, so I went on and they did the same, all the way down.

When we made it to Reggio it was early evening.

We had passed by Buco del Signore and arrived in Reggio in high spirits.

When we arrived in Reggio it was incredible, wonderful.

I don’t know if people thought that the war was over or if they still feared that it would go on,

but I’m sure that everybody was just as happy as I was.

The following day my sister and I went back home right away, since she had not seen our parents for a year.

Together with my older brother we had gone to see our sister often,

although one time we had to go 10 km away since she was afraid to come back home.

Everybody knew she was involved in the Resistance, so she was afraid to come back and be arrested.

That’s why we went home as soon as the war was over, and that was it for us.

We stopped moving around and immediately got back to work at home.