European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Partisans were dressed in normal clothes, wore a little bit of everything.

They were sort of ragged,

because there really wasn’t any organization yet.

They were they first ones.

They had already fought in the area of Modena and Reggio.

They had already disarmed a few garrisons, but they didn’t have spare clothes or supplies.

They were carrying everything they had on their shoulders.

No uniforms.

As an example, I was wearing civilian clothes when I left for the mountains.

I had on this black coat my sister had made for me.

Later I left it in Cerrè Sologno, because it was snowing; you could be spotted from miles away.

We used battle names and nothing else.

The real names were collected and then taken to Carpineti,

where one of our comrades kept them hidden.

He had all the names of our brigade, and later also of the 26th brigade lead by Luigi.

He and his wife had been ordered not to expose themselves too much.

For example, I was known as Toni, but he had my full name, my address.

If the Germans took control of this, it would have been a disaster.

They had found a cave with many hollows. We hid our names there. Nobody found them.

“What battle name would you like?” - “Any name is alright for me” - “Is Toni ok?” - “Yes, Toni is good”.