European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

In the mountains I had become another person.

I was respected and highly esteemed. Not only because of my stripes,

but because of the way I took care of difficult operations.

I didn’t want to go back home constantly having to listen to what my father or my brother said.

As soon as I got home I told my father I didn’t want to work at home anymore.

I wanted to shape my own life, find a job and become self-sufficient.

At home I felt repressed. My father agreed.

I started working, setting up women sections and the feminist movement.

I studied in a party school and was sent to take care of trade-unions.

I started to get involved in the movement for the protection of women’s rights.

I had decided I would work for all those who had died, to accomplish what they had hoped for.

Their dreams were also mine.

We wanted a few simple things:

a job, a chance to support our families properly, the right to send our children to school,

to live in a democratic society, maintain our individual values and at the same time defend the rights of the community.

So as soon as I started working for the party, I set up women sections, even if I wasn’t particularly skilled.

Women were all coming from the same background I came from.

We had to discuss together about our own issues, learn to vote, identify our problems and develop our demands.

If we discussed with men, women would not speak out.

Having a women-only group allowed us to develop those issues and build up our claims.