European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Oh, shit! We asked a man standing around

which was the safest way and he said: "I am going to the cemetery".

So we went there, too.

We didn't know the place so we decided to spend the night there

and leave the next morning. Slowly,

avoiding the main roads and the villages, we went up to the hills.

We reached Nironi, Vairo, Palanzano,

all those villages that we'd heard about but had no idea where they were.

If we asked people they would all say:

"No, here we don't know anything, we don't see anything,

we don't even know who the rebels are ..."

So slowly, slowly we proceeded uphill and were quite desperate because we had lost ...

We had some coins in our pocket but not many.

At night there always was a problem of where to spend the night, at some peasant's house.

But it was dangerous because the fascists would come and get you.

So we arrived at Corniglio

and we met this lady who was sitting outside her house knitting.

We asked her: "Lady, we're looking for partisans, the rebels ..."

Up there they didn't even know who the partisans were and we didn't have a proper term for them, either.