European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

My mother and father had always been working to set up the cooperative.

Then, that night, I remember that people came over to wake them up,

shouting that “the coop was on fire”: that’s a moment I will never forget.

There were also other reasons which kept me from taking up membership,-.

such as the fact that the Fascist youth had to take part in military activities and all kinds of classes every Saturday,

I went to live in Villa Rivalta and I wasn’t even seventeen when I started working at Officine Reggiane.

It was unpleasant to have to show a Fascist membership card for everything,

and that’s another aspect which had me disagreeing with the fascists.

you were always expected to have your Fascist membership card with you.

so I was forced to use alternative methods, those I had learned from my family,

During the first three months of school we did writing exercises and we learned to count up to fifty.

Just take my case: as soon as I finished primary third grade, after I had failed second grade,

It’s not like someone stopped me from going, it’s just that it was enough to learn the basics of reading and writing.

Later, in the army, I used to write letters for a fellow soldier from Guastalla and two more who were from the mountains.

They were my age but didn’t know how to write: I was not better than them, but I had gone to school until third grade.