European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

When we arrived we had no money, no stuff and no one to help us.

So we left the bicycle there in Compiano

and arriving at Buvolo we saw many people sitting on the bridge.

We looked at each other and said: "Those are not people, those are soldiers or fascists".

In fact one of them jumped up and came to talk to us,

but we just turned around without much fuss

and walked down to the river Enza, passed the river and walked to Scurano.

When we approached the village, we noticed a lot of people fleeing.

So we asked: "What happened?"

And they said: "The Germans have come!"

Oh, shit! We asked a man standing around

which was the safest way and he said: "I am going to the cemetery".

So we went there, too.

We didn't know the place so we decided to spend the night there

and leave the next morning. Slowly,

avoiding the main roads and the villages, we went up to the hills.

We reached Nironi, Vairo, Palanzano,

all those villages that we'd heard about but had no idea where they were.

If we asked people they would all say: