European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

When I led my battalion it was eight to ten of us

and everyone had to do surveillance, in groups of two. I did my shift alone,

three hours there in a hiding place, in the shadows, with eyes wide open.

If you don't keep your eyes open during the surveillance shift you're in big trouble.

The colour of the unit

Our unit was red, all communist, because we had some true communists.

The 144th Brigade was called “Antonio Gramsci”

and the commander was "Sintoni", one that had fought in the Spanish civil war, Pattacini,

the commissioner was Antonio Raisi, who'd fought in Spain, too, so all people that were political experts.

That was our line.

A priest, Don Guido Riva, once complained to us:

"You never come to mass! What’s wrong, are you afraid of the Church?"

I mean, we had no political experience but we thought that

by behaving like this we would be tougher enemies, and in fact we did grow up.

So our Brigade truly was the red one,

so that they hardly ever dropped stuff to us, or if they did,

they gave us useless stuff like shoes size 44 - you could place your two feet in one shoe!

Even our commanders were saying that we were somehow different.

In fact, I wasn't into politics that much,

but to be against the fascists and the Germans