European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

The guard came to me and said: "Mirko, Mirko, the Germans are here!"

We were sleeping in a barn and jumped up like hares.

"Where are they?" "In Busana on the Sparavalle". "Shut up, then!"

They were at street number 63.

We prepared without waiting for further instructions, I'd found some posts.

"Go there and don't shoot. No shooting, be aware! Keep hidden and don't smoke!"

They were there already, it was just two or three o'clock.

At six o'clock in the morning the Germans shot the warning fire as a sign of attack.

We didn't shoot, but some other partisans did,

from another side, they fired some shots and with their mortars the Germans made them run, they're still running now.

Instead, we should have take them by surprise!

Joining the partisans

Later I went up to the mountains and gave myself this nickname, "Mirko".

He was a Yugoslavian partisan leader, a tough guy of whom we were very afraid.

On the mountains I also got to know "Frigio",

the one that wrote books about the Resistance. He was a sergeant, too.

He knew some people and we established some contacts this way.

By then we used to ride bicycles, he was displaced to Barco di Bibbiano

and so he used to give us a ride with the bike but it was risky,