European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

After a few minutes the political commissioner reached us too.

He began to tell us what the situation was and how our partisan units in the mountains were coping.

He told us our work was very valuable and we should carry on with it.

He also added that women were putting themselves in a strong position for their rights to be accepted.

They were already talking about what would change after the Liberation, about the right to vote for women.

The commissioner explained to us that the right to vote was the most significant right women could have.

Throughout history it had not been acknowledged.

It was the first step towards women’s liberation.

That was the first time I heard somebody talk about these issues and about emancipation, such a great word.

Normal, every-day danger

I used to ride my bicycle from Castellazzo to piazza Fontanesi in Reggio,

to go tell the landlord if we were buying or selling. Since we were sharecroppers, we had to report to him everything that concerned the land.

I had to do this journey many times, and I often had to jump in the ditch to hide from the airplanes.

One day I asked myself if they would fire at a bicycle. I kept going on the road, as the airplane was bearing down on me.

One time I was stopped at the checkpoint by the hospice.

There was always one there, but that day a man had been killed.

So there was a group of fascists walking from San Maurizio towards the hospice,

where the local fascist headquarters were. They had laid a boy who was slaughtered

on an improvised stretcher, and walked towards the hospice singing:

“Allarme siam fascisti” (Call to arms, we’re fascists).