European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

But after this it was different, responsibilities were different, and everything changed.

I was still Lidia, but let’s say I had a very positive experience

and I also felt proud for doing this.

A bus was coming down from San Polo and we stopped it, telling them there was a strike, that they had to go back.

Some soldiers were on the bus, we got them off and disarmed them:

they gave us their weapons without resisting and didn’t get back on the bus.

They began to walk, maybe they were heading home.

This didn’t cause any trouble.

Then a fascist who had been evacuated to Montecavolo came out of a house

(we were in the main road, by the square, with the strike, our posters, etc.)

He started shooting with a machine-gun, into the air at first.

I think he also had a gun.

Many of us ran after him. We finally caught him and disarmed him.

We didn’t really hurt him, let’s say that nobody did anything that would have got him killed.

Somebody might have kicked him, but everything was ok.

The strike was over, we kept the weapons and sent them to the mountains and broke up the strike.

In noon, in Montecavolo there was already a curfew, people couldn’t go out of their homes.

We were already at home,

since we were on our bicycles, and there were about 3 or 4 km between Montecavolo and Scampate.

Beginning of the clandestine work