European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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

meant to be against the bad people that had wanted the war.

When we did the Liberation it was a big relief for us

because this was what we had wanted. But what did they want?

They just wanted people to be killed, we've seen it many times.