European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

That was June 1940, I was thirteen and a half, so what can you be concerned about?

Having had that sort of education.

These guys broke into the local headquarters of the fascist party and threw everything out of the windows,

including the portrait of Mussolini, which had been respected so much until then.

Seeing these things in the dirt of the street,

well that was the first turning point.

Introduction, family, school

My name is Giacomo Notari.

I was born and still live in the mountains, in the town of Busana, in a tiny hamlet called Marmoreto.

I have always lived here, because the mountains are part of my soul.

I was born in a small hamlet of about 300 inhabitants.

Most of the people were small farmers who survived on subsistence farming.

It was the same for my family: we had some land, a few cows, chestnut groves and some woods.

Except for a few days during the war I never suffered hunger.

I had a brother who died as a partisan at 19, towards the end of the war.

I also had an uncle, who didn’t live with us but in Cervarezza,

who died as a partisan after being confined to the Tremiti Islands by the fascists.

On the other hand, my family was a traditional Christian and catholic family.

My father used to sing in church.

I have never served at Mass, although they had asked me, because I didn’t like to dress up.