European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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.

Mail wasn’t delivered to Marola anymore, although at times when I went to Reggio for my tasks I would take care of it.

My parents said that it was too far, but we left Marola and arrived in Milan in two days.

From there we took the train to Como.

In Como a man asked us where we were going,

and we replied that we were going to visit our brothers since they hadn’t sent any news for a long time.

We were also going to tell them that they had to run away,

because the Germans were sending all sorts of people who were caught during roundups to Germany, especially young men, as well as the Jews.

Then the man asked us where we had slept, and we told him we slept in the train station.

“But the station is closed at night”, he said. “I guess we’ll sleep in a shelter then”, we replied.

“There are no shelters in Como, it’s a free city and we don’t get bombed”. What could we say?

We wouldn’t have said anything else, but at that point he told us to go with him

and bought us the ticket for the ferry that would have taken us all the way to the other side of the lake from Como, to Pizzo di Trona.

He was truly an angel.