European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

On the other hand, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of those partisans, or even civilians, who had to bear these episodes:

It’s hard to caress your torturer’s cheek when you meet him after the war.

We must understand what happened during the war.

These brutalities affected us too.

These slaughters and the violence were something terrible for us.

Although I was a member of Azione Cattolica,

I believed in the values of forgiveness and of similar principles,

it was hard for me, too.

Training a group of sappers

The ones I was working with weren't trained.

Once, they were on guard duty and an accidental burst of fire occurred.

They fled, leaving me alone.

So I told myself I had to form a group of sappers under my command.

I went to put forward my idea at the headquarters of the 26th Brigade, and I told Luigi:

“Listen, I want to set up a team of sappers, I can train them”.

We would have been under direct orders of the Brigade.

The headquarters agreed, so I trained this group.

We were able to take care of three or four actions at a time in a group of 12 men.

At the same time we reduced the risk, unfortunately some of us got killed at times.

If I was killed there would have been nobody left.