European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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,

and I started asking my father why we were considered differently from the others.

My father tried to explain it to me, as best he could since I was still a little girl.

He would have never enlisted us in the “Piccole Italiane”, or the boys in the “Balilla”.

As we got older we began to understand how things were going, that the antifascists had to go underground.

I was ten, it was obvious by then.