European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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.

There they found all the bridges blown up.

It was a nightmare for them, until they made it to Boretto.

With difficulty they had to leave thousands of tanks, horses, other things, an incredible haul.

Few or none of the Germans made it across the Po river.

The Resistance for me was just like going to university.

I learned to feel confident throughout my whole life, and never felt uncomfortable again.

That’s why I set up the cooperative although everybody was against the idea. Consorzio, Federcoop laughed at me:

“What are you setting up the cooperative for? You wouldn’t be able to lead a cooperative even if the times were different”.

I replied: “You don’t understand. I took part in the Resistance and I learned a lot from it.

We did things you wouldn’t even imagine”.

It was hard to forgive…

We were all between 15 and 28 years old.

A boy called Francia wasn’t even fifteen.

Another one from Guastalla, who’s still alive, was seventeen,

the others were around 20-21 years old.