European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Fossoli: Russian prisoners liberated

The Germans had taken 250-300 Russian prisoners to a camp in Fossoli.

Together with the GAPs and the partisans from Modena

we surrounded the camp and took all the Russians to the mountains.

The central headquarters then took care of the rest, talking with the three Russian officers.

One of them later became a partisan choosing Modena as his battle name.

Afterwards we had a major problem in the lowlands around Reggio.

One of the Russians we had taken to the mountains escaped and joined the Black Brigades.

He knew the lowlands, since he had spent some time working in some houses there.

He began to point out the houses to the Black Brigades, who set them on fire.

Since he would come to Reggio, two of our women dispatch riders convinced him

to go out one night, promising him “a very good time”.

To make it short: he was killed.

Steeling ammunition

We figured out that the Germans

had put a lot of ammunition under some trees.

They even had the Italian sub-machine gun ammunition we had been looking for everywhere.

We had the weapons but no ammunition. There were also machine guns, a bazooka and other weapons.

We never caused any retaliation by the Germans, who would burn down civilian houses.

We opened the trunks with a screwdriver, took out the ammunition and weigh it