European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

I told you I was in Cervarezza with my battalion

of 100-120 partisans, and then we went down the Sparavalle

and got to Castelnovo Monti and there some more people joined us.

All on foot. It was a beautiful moment, we were happy and quiet.

Then we reached Reggio and were so proud.

Sometimes there still was some idiots shooting at us,

hidden in the houses, we call them snipers.

One of our friends was killed in Cà di Rocco,

next to the church of San Pellegrino.

A sniper-idiot who was sitting on the roof of the church, they killed him, too, later.

It was people who didn't want to surrender. As of the rest it was a big party, that's it.

Military experience

When I was serving in the first unit,

it was my task to train to people, set up teams.

If there was one who had more courage than others

I placed a few shy ones next to him.

I told them: "Don't shoot, don't shoot, don't smoke

when you're in that position

and don't show the white parts of your body and your face because they can see you".

That was it, but the ones that were paying less attention to these instructions or were distracted