European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

We only made it to our destination at noon, as the ferry was quite slow and stopped in all those small villages.

When we got there the soldiers were coming back from a mop-up.

What do you call them, fascists? Or should I say “repubblichini” (supporters of the Republic of Salò), as we called them then?

Anyway, they were all there apart from my brother.

I was desperate, I immediately thought he had been killed in the mountains.

But it wasn’t true, he simply didn’t take part in the mop-ups.

He worked as a shoemaker or as a warehouseman, any type of job,

whatever he could find so as not to go out on missions with the other soldiers.

I finally found him and he was doing fine. Then I told him that they had to come back home, otherwise the partisans would kill them.

Either they would be killed here or back home, because afterwards they would be considered responsible of terrible deeds.

They were really scared, I guess they were brainwashed in order for them to be cruel, to imprison or kill people.

Whatever they had to do, they were frightened.

He told me that they couldn’t run away, that there was no way for them to do so.

That was it, and we went back home. Later fortunately they were taken to Cento, near Ferrara.

They probably needed soldiers there, so they moved them.

I took my bicycle and brought him some clothes, and he was finally able to escape.

There were six men from Marola and they all managed to escape, two at a time, and make it home.

They wore plain clothes and ran away at night, just like everybody else, in order not to be caught by the Germans or the fascists.