European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

One day Maria Montanari’s cousin, who worked at the Reggiane plant,

had managed to bring out an airplane radio-transmitter.

It was big, and it was at my house.

It wasn’t a normal radio-transmitter.

It had a button you had to press, and during the war it was the one the armies had.

So we had to bring it to the mountains.

Maria and I agreed on the following plan. I’d go to the mountains by train.

I’d get the Reggio-Ciano train at the station, put my bicycle on the coach and get on.

Maria was supposed to look at where I was sitting, and come inside.

We’d pretend we didn’t know each other.

She would put the package in front of me, at the end of the compartment, and leave.

They often checked the suitcases.

We figured that if they found the package, nobody could have told whose it was.

Everything went alright until San Polo, where the train was surrounded. The fascist police started searching.

They looked all over the place, under the seats, inside the packages and suitcases.

But they didn’t notice my package. It was covered with some newspapers.

When I arrived in Ciano I left the bicycle at the station and followed the Enza river.

Then I asked them to come pick up this damned radio, because it was almost a 5 km walk from Ciano to Cerresola.

It wasn’t a very nice journey with that thing. I had no chance of getting through the police blocks, so I solved the problem that way.