European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

I took my bicycle and brought him some clothes, and he was finally able to escape.

There were six men from Marola and they all managed to escape, two at a time, and make it home.

They wore plain clothes and ran away at night, just like everybody else, in order not to be caught by the Germans or the fascists.

Searching for the wounded near Albinea

They decided to come to Albinea

so I had to take care of a lot of things, because they always had something to set up.

The partisans of Modena were a very large group, and they also had to coordinate the Russians who were with them.

So there were many of us when we arrived at Lupo.

We left Secchio at night and made it to Valestra at dawn.

We stayed there the whole day and left again in the evening, arriving at Lupo at two thirty in the morning.

Leaving Valestra, as we were on the road that goes from Casina to Albinea, you could still see the long line behind.

There were so many people: the English, the paratroopers, the Gufi Neri, all the partisans from the Central Headquarters.

We stayed there the whole day and then the following night, at around midnight, they went down for the attack.

Soon you could hear shots, as well as the sound of bagpipes,

since the English were used to going to battle playing bagpipes.

I can’t recall how many women we were, myself and another skinny girl from Villa Minozzo,

but later Kiss told us that our task for the next day would be to search for any wounded, since anyone wounded had to be retrieved.

The following day, as soon as it was light enough, we were asking ourselves what we had to do.

Nobody was around and no partisans had returned. They must have dispersed in all directions.

We wondered if there were any wounded men or not.