European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Growing up during Fascism

Our school organized a contest for the best drawing.

There was a need to move closer to the city.

They were a very bright, mature and well-prepared group of working class people.

We moved there in 1938; I had just turned 17. We had a restaurant with a bar.

Although I was quite young, I was very curious. I had always been like that.

The older men liked me. They started to explain to me what I had known only in general terms.

What fascism really was, the real reasons behind its existence,

for it was only violence and ignorance to me at that time.

These men were generally Communists and Socialists.

I began to understand and to see things from a different point of view that attracted me more.

I had made friends with the young men who came to our bar.

When they left for war I became their communication point.

They were writing from Africa,

from France, from Russia, asking for news about each other.

I started to have a broader view of the war, compared to those who only had letters from their relatives.