European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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.

Then in May we went to work together in the rice-fields in Piedmont, and by the end of the year she got married.

After the war was over we weren’t involved in the Resistance anymore.

Maybe I did have a card, you see, but I don’t know anymore.

Our family was at home then, and we were rather happy, although we didn’t have any money or anything at all.