European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

We felt that women were silently behind us in our struggle for peace,

waiting for the war to be over, so it wasn’t hard.

We shared the tasks house by house.

It was decided we would pass the word house by house and in small groups.

We had to reach the Reggio Emilia prefecture, in corso Garibaldi,

all together at 2 pm, but each had to move alone.

This meant you had to be really committed.

It wasn’t an everyday thing for a mother living 10 km away to take her bicycle and go in front of the prefecture.

But people were really starving and tired of the war, and there had been too many people dying.

So in front of the prefecture were 2000.

2000 women.

We arrived at the prefecture and the majority of us entered the courtyard.

We had appointed three women to go talk with the podestà.

They were arrested immediately.

The women who were outside joined us inside the courtyard.

We started to shout that we wouldn’t leave until they released them.

We stayed there a few hours and finally saw our comrades walking down the stairs. What were we asking for?

We were asking for salt and food for our children, especially for those living in the city.

In the country we always managed to find something to eat. In the city kids were dying of hunger.

There was a ration card, they didn’t even have a few salad leaves.