European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

and about having to get involved in the clandestine struggle, organizing people against this dictatorship,

since it really was a dictatorship then.

By the time I left San Bartolomeo I was already part of the clandestine Communist Party.

I had a cousin who had been incarcerated, his name was Nello Strozzi.

And then also my boyfriend’s brother.

Me and my boyfriend had started dating when I was eighteen,

he was of the Viani family, his name was Alfeo.

Introduction, childhood during fascism

My name is Lidia Valeriani.

I was born on the 23rd of January 1923

in Montecavolo di Quattro Castella,

in a small hamlet called Scampate.

Awful fascist times.

My father was a victim of political persecution.

I had two brothers older than I,

and six more followed, making us a family of nine brothers.

As soon as we started to go to school,

we already understood that things were different for us children of antifascists,

compared to those of the fascists, who were enrolled in the “Balilla”, in the “Piccole Italiane” - the fascist youth organizations.

I noticed and realized this when I was six,