European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Awful fascist times.

My father was a victim of political persecution.

I had two brothers older than I,

and six more followed, making us a family of nine brothers.

As soon as we started to go to school,

we already understood that things were different for us children of antifascists,

compared to those of the fascists, who were enrolled in the “Balilla”, in the “Piccole Italiane” - the fascist youth organizations.

I noticed and realized this when I was six,

and I started asking my father why we were considered differently from the others.

My father tried to explain it to me, as best he could since I was still a little girl.

He would have never enlisted us in the “Piccole Italiane”, or the boys in the “Balilla”.

As we got older we began to understand how things were going, that the antifascists had to go underground.

I was ten, it was obvious by then.

In 1933, when they started arresting a lot of people (they arrested and beat people even before that),

I realized the situation, and some of our neighbours were arrested that year.

Demobilisation; civil life starts

Eventually the day came that I was to be demobilized.

I received 5000 dinars; that was a lot of money at the time.

When I left the office of Sekulic, he took hold of my epaulettes, tore them off and stomped on them.

These two stars, I had two on each shoulder because I was a second lieutenant, I still have them today.