European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Once a week, when she went to Reggio to buy supplies, she’d bring me news about my family and give them mine.

I was at the end of my strength.

It was because of the way we lived, the shortage of food, the lack of vitamins.

My legs hurt so much that before I went somewhere, I had to warm up like horses do before they run.

I had a bad inflammation of the gums.

Since we didn’t have anything else, the doctor taught us to put a few milligrams

of verdigris in the water and rinse our mouth with that to disinfect.

After a while a medical student joined us. He gave some vitamin injections to a few of us.

The poor girls who did cried desperately because of the pain (he had to give the shots into their backs).

That was the way we were living. We were really looking forward to go back home.

When they gave me the news I was in Gottano.

I sat on a rock just outside town and could see the mountains and woods all around.

I recalled all my memories of the partisan struggle

and suddenly was hit by sadness. Not because I was leaving that place,

but because I had seen too many of my comrades die.

There were more and more women in the mountains by then, because some had been arrested and tortured.

When they were in danger they went to the mountains to the partisans.

The public opinion started talking about what women would be doing there, ill-minded.

I had to clash with this idea, too.