European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

During the night we set up an outpost in Santo Stefano,

with our headquarters at Pecorari’s, a bicycle producer.

The following morning I told the others I had to leave

for a couple of hours to go to the central headquarters. It was a lie.

I went to visit an uncle who lived close by, borrowed a bicycle and went home.

Near the Via Emilia, they had known about the Liberation before.

When I arrived at home, in Cella, it was 9:30 or 10, and they had just found out.

I was one of the first partisans who had come back.

It was a disaster.

I couldn’t stop crying since I had always been very sensitive.

My father was telling people to let me go: “He didn’t die in the mountains, do you want him to die here?”

Afterwards I went to the well,

washed my face with some cold water and straightened myself up, then went back to Reggio.

By then all the young girls in Cella had formed a column and were walking towards Reggio to march into town.

They arrived in Reggio, together with those from Pieve Modolena, Cavazzoli, etc.

They had formed an endless column.

They reached Santo Stefano, where the order was not to go into town since there were snipers shooting.

At the time of the Liberation,

the partisans changed the road signs on the Via Emilia,

so that the Germans headed towards the lowlands instead of Milan.