European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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.

We really had to get to work and do something.

My sister was about to get married and we didn’t even have anything for her trousseau.

Brother deserts from the army

Then it was September of 1944 when I went to Como.

I left for Milan by foot with a friend. We made it to Piacenza on the first day, then to Milan the day after.

We were going to visit my brother, since we didn’t have any news about him anymore.