European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

That day we didn’t listen to the radio, since nobody had one.

But the news moved fast, on our bicycles.

Within an hour of the announcement the whole town knew that the King had signed the armistice.

We began to see soldiers wandering in the country, going back home.

I had developed an awareness regarding antifascism.

I was active together with other women in asking local families to offer hospitality

and clothes for these young men who were disbanded.

After the King had fled, the army had no leadership.

Then the Germans occupied the area, on that same day.

Joining the Communist Party

I really flew into a rage in 1938,

as my brother was arrested.

He was arrested for being a subversive.

That’s how the regime labelled those who didn’t agree with the Duce.

The Communist party underground network was constantly growing.

The young subversives organized themselves house by house.

The Communist leaders had already been arrested a long time before and sent to confinement.

Therefore it might have seemed that there was no leadership left.

But there was this network,

as fragile as it could have been which was secretly growing thanks to the words and the work of these young men.