European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

However I was younger than the others, and I understood that this was an advantage.

I was with a man called Bonini, from Villa Seta, who was around forty-five years old

and had a wife at home, renting a small farm and taking care of the kids:

that was a lot harder, but he always managed to take care of things rather easily.

Then I finally came home from confinement.

I had been given some documents which I was supposed to bring to the police.

When I went there, I knocked on the door (we already knew how it worked)

and the person inside asked me who I was.

As I replied “Porta”, he told me to go out.

I knocked again, and he sent me out again, for three times.

Finally, he told me: “Don’t you know that when you come here you must give the Roman salute?”.

I replied that I had just come back from almost four years of confinement for a lot less,

and that I would rather be sent back there than have to obey to him.

He eventually told me to go home, but it gives you an idea ...

Arrest while in the army

There was one rule back then.

At Reggiane we manufactured airplanes

– you can still see one of the airplanes we made, it’s at the Reggio Emilia airport –

so the young workers of Reggiane who were called into the Army were entitled to serve in the Air Force,

while those who worked at Lombardini Motori, manufacturing ship engines, usually served in the Navy.