European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

We grew up working the land with him, until we were called into the army when we were around twenty.

I spent three years in Turin with the Engineer Corps

and then we were transferred to Bardonecchia where we stayed another three years.

On the 8th of September 1943,

General Vercellino ordered us to mine the Frejus tunnel,

since the Germans were coming through with tanks and army crews loaded on freight trains.

We carried 14 hundred kilograms of explosives inside the tunnel and blew it up.

But the Germans kept coming along the road across the mountains and were shooting at us.

We were ordered to withdraw towards Turin. We reached the city walking in the countryside for 100 km.

In Turin, we were already surrounded by the Germans. They had followed the road on motor vehicles.

Many of us were captured there.

Then we were put on freight trains, around seventy of us in each box car.

They had unloaded cattle before and the straw was still there.

They were told us that we would be going to Germany.

The train had to stop in Codoglio di Piacenza,

in order to let through another train coming in the opposite direction.

Trains at the time were not electric, they were powered with coal.

We stopped for quite a long time.

Since the wagons were full of people, it was hot inside. There wasn’t enough ventilation.

Some passed out, so the Germans opened the sliding doors slightly to let some air in.