All right, so when can I start speaking?

Right away then. The fact leading to my making a political choice, which then inspired me into taking certain actions and beginning to think in a certain way, had taken place through an extra-ordinary experience. Even though this had occurred in the form of a true revelation, which is something I have never disclosed before, such revelation was actually identifiable with a precise time and a precise day, that is to say, 5.30 p.m. of the 28^th February 1943.

I was with a group of friends, we were coming down from the Asiago Highlands, where it had slightly snowed, and we were chatting away about settling down in marriage or, let’s put it this way, about "fiancées". It then happened that as the conversation went on, the eldest among us, a student of the Catholic University of Milan, had turned to me and said, ‘What the devil do you think you know about families, or topics of the nature?’ ‘No, no, no. I am well versed in these things,’ had been my reply. Now you should just try to imagine that I had only recently turned sixteen then, and had no political culture that went beyond being a member of the "Balilla" (fascist youth organisation) or a frontline activist, as well as my being good at participating in colourful memorial parades for the conquest of Adua, Makallè, etc., for "The Empire" and the lot!

The resultant discussion with my friends, however, at once turned into a political starting point for me. ‘The fact is that in Milan one is able to… there are people who… there is the Action Party,’ this friend of mine who studied in Milan had continued. ‘What is a party?’ I asked him then. So he explained to me that the Fascist Party was the only party in Italy, or at least the only one that people were allowed know. He said there were, however, other kinds of parties founded on the principle of liberty, rather than on this absurd way of compelling people into doing certain things. This was the revelation, and that is why I am able to remember the time, the date and everything: because from that day onwards everything in my life changed. It was practically in this way that I came to the understanding of political realities and, successively, of democracy: having neither ever seen nor ever heard about all these things before: it was indeed a revelation!

But I made my choice at once, saying, ‘in this case Italy must lose the war, if at all we want to obtain freedom.’ - Just check that out, right: at sixteen years of age, more or less! – And, at this point the other boy said, ‘you can bet the Duce will with all probability be overthrown during the summer.’ The thing seemed terribly incredible to me: my goodness, this was the guy who was actually in charge of everything!

Then came the 1^st of May, the first day of May, taken that I was even ignorant as to whatever significance this day could have… what on earth did this 1^st of May do? I thought it must have been something extra-ordinarily great, and understood this because the Fascist Party of Marostica had invited all the old aged, the elderly people of the township had been invited to a dinner in the evening of the day before the 1^st of May. Somebody said to me, ‘you know, they prefer the elderly, those who are not taking part in the war; I mean, the old aged who do not go murmuring around about other parties.’ And so on my very own initiative, that very same night I went out and covered the town walls with writings like, "Down with the Duce" and other similar slogans. In the days that followed the whole place was under shock. Nobody understood anything, because … So I realised I had done what was in fact an anti-fascist demonstration "in preview", so to say; even though not long after, on the 25^th of July, when Mussolini was dethroned, I was able to calmly confess. ‘I was the one who wrote slogans on the walls the other time,’ I said, at which somebody exclaimed ‘bravo, you did well!’ and so on.

Then came the 8^th of September … ha, ha, … and soon after the fascists began looking for me. In the meantime I was able to fabricate a few explosives, because I had consulted one from the Corps of Engineers and he had explained to me how explosives were made. And so I produced a number of explosives, using bottles to crush gunpowder on the little marble table and, well, I made them. However on this 8^th of September, at around 12.00 noon or 1.00 p.m., I had to run away from Marostica, and I went to Cadore – to Dont, to Coi di Zoldo Alto, beneath the Pelmo – where I found my elder brother who had escaped from Gorizia, and was now a captain of something or the other of the artillery, belonging to some sort of army o alpine artillery unit, along with other three acquaintances coming from this same place. Nobody here knew anything. Every now and then they would send me in search for some inhabited place, they would send me so that I could look for possible signs of the presence of soldiers, but not a single soul was to be found. They had wanted to send me to the woods of Cansiglio. However, I was unable to go there, and then towards mid November we had … we had to come back home. It was then that I was … I discovered that the first resistance groups were being organised. And so I started to be the link between the various people who were organising things here on the plains; meanwhile it happened that four of our friends were taken prisoners and executed by firing squad inside the castle of Marostica, right! There were four of them, and I had waited for them to arrive in the square, this is more or less how it went. That night, after the executions, I wrote one hundred handbills and, dressed in a black cloak, went out and slipped them beneath the doors of all the bloody fascists of the town. Even this time there was a great shock, because they would never have expected to find leaflets under their doors at midnight, just after having executed four belonging to the resistance the afternoon before. This was really something rather … Then it all stopped. The English began parachuting arms in the countryside, and so we were able to reacquire the use of some weaponry such as sub-machine-guns and the like. I hid these after having brought them home. I concealed the first two weapons inside the bed of the priest of Saint Anthony’s Parish; of course he had not been informed about anything, but was at once able to understand who it had been. In July, and not in June, I went to Friuli, to Carina, where my elder brother was, and who had … he was one of the organisers of the Osoppo Brigades. By then the Osoppo Brigade; that is, it was not the Osoppo Brigade, but the Osoppo Freedom Battalion, which later became a brigade and was part of the brigades group. At first it was commanded by my brother, and when it turned from being a battalion into a brigade it was commanded by yet another brother of mine who was a tank crew member, while my other brother went on working with the organisation and became the political commissary of the Osoppo Division Group. At a certain point, nobody knew that he was my brother, absolutely nobody. But this did not matter much to me, because I was the most poorly dressed; they would never provide me with clothes to change. And he would say to me, 'if you are my brother how can I give you clothes?' Always the same old story, and so I requested for leave and, in eight days, walked from above Gemona, through the mountains, and came to Marostica. In Marostica, I came across a pair of couriers and, suspecting that they might know everything, went up the Highlands of Asiago and came to Mount… how do they call it… Mount Maicroba, where a battalion was being formed. Unfortunately, the place was about to… the crucial moments of the mopping-up operations on Mount Grappa and the Highlands were about to arrive, and therefore there was a slight… the people who had gathered were slightly dispersed. So I came down onto the plains, moved on to Valdagno and, with false documents of identity, managed to travel to Liguria. Then I went up the Ligurian Apennines with the Savona Brigade - I am not really sure of this name, but do recall that there was a commander from Savona. I presented my Curriculum Vitae, let's say, written… and was then taken in, but shortly after this discovered that a hundred thousand lice infested me! There was no blanket with which to cover myself, and I only had one single change of light clothes. It was by now mid-November and I was upon the Lange; it was freezing cold, I fell sick. Sores ran down all over my body, and in between these sores roamed a hundred thousand lice! I had to leave and come down, and luckily for me my mother and one of my brothers were in a place nearby, and therefore were able to receive me and to treat me, that's it.

As soon as my sores had healed, on the 8^th of March, I returned upon the Lange with the Third Brigade - West Lange, and became the courier of the brigade command. The brigade commander was Mario, Mario Ferraro, who belonged to the First Division which was in its turn commanded by Bogliolo, and both of them came from the group of Mauri. We participated in a number of actions here. There was also Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, the lieutenant of the Carabinieri, who, once in a while, would send me around and about the place for his own orders. I was renowned for my agility and speed among the woods, and for my physical resistance. Anyhow, at that point, practically at a certain moment, it was enough! We went back home, only that there wasn't a home anymore for many of us. One simply didn't know where to go… that's it. As far as concerns, let's say, curriculum or matriculation paper, well, these are the places I have been to in my activity as a partisan, that's it.

In the course of this long and complex ordeal experienced by a little boy of sixteen, which actually is the moment in which personal awareness assumes political significance or, in other words, becomes an individual clear-cut and lucid-minded commitment?

Well but… it all became clear at once: only that being immature at the time, and having no notions whatsoever about the basis of society in its complex, I had imagined that I was the only one who rightfully had to personify that political component. Not that I got carried away by the desire of giving commands to others; but when I did talk about freedom, about patriotism, about the enemy, about anti-fascism, I felt it all swelling up inside me. There was not a person with whom I could discuss these things since I was rather wild in character. I had been brought up in certain ways, even though I no longer had social ties with this context. But I did have political thoughts; that thought about freedom which can be summarised by the Christian precept, "don't do to others what you would not want others to do to you," or, "love your neighbour as you love yourself". In other words, the relation between me and the entire social reality was ultimately based upon these principles here; even because I happened to have had a severe mother, from the Catholic aspect of it, and had been taught in a very incisive way about choosing between what is right and what is wrong - at least in things that did not go beyond ordinary comprehension, right? I mean, things like not offending ones neighbours, or respecting other people’s liberty and the like.

However, all this had the effect of rendering everything so painstakingly difficult. I found myself making such choices and taking such decisions as, now looking back at the things I was able to do and considering the age I had then, would have taken the power of a thousand thunderbolts to achieve; a capacity of action backed by an enormous force. Try to figure it out for yourselves what it would mean to be moving around at such an age, with a curfew in force, with public executions taking place all over Italy, etc. Departing from above Gemona and coming down right through the mountains, through the mopping-up operations, through… you could hear the fighting going on all around, you could see… it was a terrible thing when you approached a house: there was only half the probability that someone would show up to answer, and that you would receive a piece of "polenta", so to say, which you were sure was all you had to enable you to cover the next twenty kilometres running, and so… I will narrate for you just one fact: I had come to Vittorio Veneto by way of Monte Cavallo, and then from Pian Cavallo, skipping the Del Consiglio woods to the South. When I was just above Vittorio Veneto and had to head westwards, that is to say, through the valley that separates Vittorio Veneto from the hills of… the ones that run right up to the Piave, that’s it, guys, I looked down, and saw five railway cars massed up together in the river at the bottom of the valley: they had blown up the bridge and the railway cars were there. I came across a man who said to me, ‘five of them were hanged down here yesterday. You should pass above the electric power station, but must absolutely make sure that you are not seen because there are German machine guns positioned above the power station.’ In the meantime I was able to observe them from the top of the mountain, right? And so I crawled down under the cover of a low wall, reached the road, crossed it and went up the slope of the opposite mountain. I can assure you it felt like a full charge at the enemy, so to say; and I was able to manage it quite smoothly, without anything going wrong. Then I spent the night at the lakes of Revin, and the following day the partisans of the place accompanied me the up to the foot of the Montello, descending to the bridge of Midollo after a distance of five or six kilometres. Once we were there, they said to me, 'this is the point where you have to cross because right on the other side you will find the Montello. Climb straight up to the top, and go down the opposite slope. Where are you actually heading for?' 'Well,' I replied, 'I am going to Vicenza.'

I was actually gazing away at the mountains in the horizon, towards Mount Grappa. And very far away I was able to distinguish the Highlands of Asiago, at a distance of about forty or fifty kilometres. I began to cross the Piave, and, slowly by slowly, made my way across, manoeuvring myself between the shrubs. I went through the main stream of water and, reaching the opposite bank, found a canal - which exists to this day. For a moment I was in the open, upon an embankment. Then down I went again: this time neck-deep into the water. I waded across, almost carried away by the current, reached the other side and pulled myself up the embankment. Suddenly, I found myself face to face with a barrier, and a high one too: a fence three metres high with its posts and the wire netting curved outwards in the other direction. I didn't stop to think one second but simply hurdled myself across it. And it was only after I had landed on the other side that I became aware of those voices speaking in German: It was a German Command!

I knew I absolutely had to get out of there, and, even with those fence posts hooking inwards towards me, was able to prove my agility: it took me but a few seconds. Well, I managed to get out, and continued to hear them talking. Probably none of them had even glanced in my direction; otherwise I wouldn't be seated here talking to you now.

And so, if I am to say, these are the deeds I was carrying out around and about, even before I was seventeen years old. When I performed these actions I was always alone by myself, and had neither any ready made decisions nor a command, a place to go to, or even a shoulder to lean on for protection; nothing of all this!

So, up to this point… the thing that really gave me more motivation than everything else, this time from a political point of view and sentimentally speaking, is exactly what everybody is now saying, claiming that they were not aware of what the Germans were doing, that nobody knew anything about the concentration camps, and that they were not informed about the fate of the Jews. How on earth could this be true when I myself was already hiding away Jews long before the 8^th of September, or even before the 25^th of July, helping them by person and providing them with food? If I knew these things, how possible is it that the Pope, the politicians and all the rest would not have known anything? From where else would I have acquired such information?

As a matter of fact there was always someone… for example, when I arrived here from Carnia, I came along with three people who had been captured by the nazi and taken to Germany. Luckily, these three had been able to escape and, fleeing across the mountains had arrived where our detachment was - the Monte Nereo Detachment, which belonged to the Liberty Battalion. And since they were originally from the area, we approached the town marching together. So there wasn't really anything like lack of news, since even I myself could get to know these things. Just imagine those who nowadays go about claiming they had no idea about what was taking place then; it's a way of doing politics that simply makes me laugh, right? Of the… how could they, for example, say that we have equal status and we all fought for our fatherland? No, nothing of this is true: we were fighting for freedom, and against Nazism and fascism. Let this be clear to the young as well as to the elderly, and without having to write books or things of the such. And this has always been self-explanatory for everyone; except that, for instance, someone like myself didn't obviously go about blowing his own trumpet or telling tales all over the place. It is the first time in almost… how long… fifty five years, that I am now telling you this particular story, that's it. Moreover, I have even been able to add on a few, let's say, rather comical anecdotes about the war: I don't want this war to become a document of permit that would freely allow people to do whatever they desire. One must always fight and achieve such kind of liberty, or things of this type, on a day to day basis.

In spite of this, the discovery, and this is what becoming mature is all about, the sourest discovery of all for me to admit was the fact that each one of us really does have a bit of fascism inside us, and that the first battle we therefore have to win is against our own selves. This explains all the egoism, and so forth, or else the desire of always appearing to be the strongest when faced by someone slightly more ignorant or weaker. On the contrary, I believe someone who really loves freedom should be respectful towards all. So far there hasn't been any organisation that has proved this to me, and I really don't know whether I will live long enough to see something.

Once more returning to the Jews, I must confess my sense of guilt for what I did at the end of the war, perhaps a year or two after this, when I supplied them with a truckload of arms. This happened during the period in which they were secretly migrating to Palestine by sea. Having read the Bible even when I was still a child, by the time it seemed to me that this return of the Jewish people to their place of origin, to their "genesis", was something sacrosanct. Today I don't believe in this anymore. I am convinced that politics must have poisoned even this return to the origins.

Well, I don't have anything more to say.

Well, that's true. In fact I myself have often declared having fought a war on my own. There was therefore a sufficient degree of anarchy from this point of view. Nevertheless, going back to what I was saying before with regard to liberty, when I was in the group I was totally respectful towards the group; only that I instinctively tended to prefer moments and situations that had the effect of making me, let's say, rather more solitary. Sentimentally speaking I would actually "navigate"; let's put it this way, I would "navigate" in certain situations… that, from this point of view, were even romantic, if you want: consisting of sentiments, I mean to say. I wasn't actually a very learned person, just as I told you before; only that, being someone who could not stay put, I would go for those, say, the decisively more "mobile" points, if you want; just as if I had to interpret them…

I'll give you an example: one day the Monte Nero Detachment of the Liberty in Carnia Battalion, to which we belonged, ran completely out of food supply. A platoon of us was sent down to the plains. We crossed the Tagliamento and headed for the grinding mill of Trasadisc. Well, in one way or the other the miller was able to supply us freely with thirty-five kilos of yellow corn flour.

We had a rucksack with us which, by the time, was considered to be really special: the first type of rucksacks with steel blades fitted on the backside; I had never seen anything of this type before. Among us there were former members of the Alpine Corps belonging to the Julia, as well as people who had been to Russia, Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece. And since I was the skinniest of all, just try to imagine that I weighed only fifty-five kilos, so to say, these other people carried the rucksack. Once again we crossed the Tagliamento and started off towards Mount Rossa and the Pian del Latte.

At a certain point I said, 'just let me have that rucksack.' 'Oh, but if we give it to you the flour will definitely not arrive up there for the "polenta",' was the reply. Well, you won't believe it, but even with thirty-five kilos of flour, I still got there half an hour earlier than those who weren't carrying anything. This is actually how I interpreted certain types of relations: I just didn't stop to think what was happening. And so when I arrived with the flour, the welcome they gave me was really something incredible. It took them more or less a quarter of an hour to prepare the "polenta", which was then served on the stall door that had just been unhinged: it measured fifty centimetres by thickness and, how hungry we all were! And so we set to devouring our meal of the day, and it's quite amusing to recall that this had taken the peculiar form of the cauldron.

As far as staying put in one place is concerned… I was on guard quite a number of times, but as far as remaining within the encampment without going out is concerned… for me it was really something unbearable. But the commanders soon came to understand this, and therefore sent me to every corner of the world, as a result of which I was always running.

Then the famous problems that occurred on the Eastern Front began - the problems with the Slavs who were trying to extend their penetration into Italy farther than Gorizia and Udine - and so I had to leave the place. Since our group was a mixed one, the Garibaldini and us, some episodes of open contrast had already taken place between us. This probably wasn't in itself anything more than a dialectical situation, even though at a certain point we did begin to look at each other in a rather unfriendly way.

For me this was something… I paid a very dear price for it because I felt personally offended, from a certain point of view. As a declaration of principle, all of us were, in the first place, partisans fighting against fascism and nazism: political matters could therefore wait to be discussed and dealt with in a different moment. However, the truth was that really very little was known about true politics here. A majority of the soldiers, those who had arrived at the age of about twenty-five or twenty-six years, knew absolutely nothing about politics. Everything connected with this sphere had only been successively elaborated as a consequence of the choice made against the fascist rule of compulsory military service at the war front, rather than in the pursuit of ideals. I, for one, was instead inspired by ideals, but even then was aware that the others had much lesser than what I had: they were against the system just for the sake of being against it. Only afterwards, as time passed, did the acquisition of awareness become a reality. And even then, according to me the political aspect wasn't really made accessible to all. The fact is that there always exists a part for the people who command and another part for those who obey. Unfortunately this is how things always are: I am using the term, "unfortunately", because even with one's eyes and ears alone it is possible to get to know everything, but if one is not trained in the comprehension of the words or phrases that men exchange among themselves, then one can very easily remain unaware of what is actually taking place. It is always necessary for one to understand… even just a single word, mingled with a certain way of doing things or with a particular action, no matter how little, has a very profound meaning in certain circumstances. I was an expert in the interpretation of such things, but I would interpret them only for myself. I was somewhat like a dog that is so affectionately related to its master, and therefore always able to tell whenever the master intends to go out: with a build-in capacity of understanding this even three minutes before it actually happens! This, of course, doesn't at all belong to a logical way of working things out, or else to something obtainable through simple dialectics. Contrarily, it is something purely instinctive, even though the biggest problem remained that of being able to transform this into a collective benefit for all.

I feel proud of not getting involved in this kind of rhetoric, but still I don't really think that all this depends on the absence of a grandfather; probably it only does to a very small extent. I think it is a result of the lack of education in interpreting the signals that we continuously receive. These signals are similar to the ones I first received during the war when I was very young, and, moreover, just a single sentence had been enough for me: 'what the devil do you think you know about families?' And then it took a quarter of an hour get my mind set, even if I actually was already politically affiliated to… in such a way that while I adhered to the Action Party or carried out certain actions, that is, I was already able to think about the downfall of Benito Mussolini, that would have taken place during the summer, and a number of stories like this one. Non the less, the signals do exist, and what I am really saying is that people should try to make an effort to understand that we were in a society in which it was easier to get killed than nowadays. It was a pitiless society, that wouldn't forgive even a thing, and would ask for your head on a plate… So, what would happen was this: whoever had intentions of listening and trying to understand things better was free to come forward, but of course taking this step forward demands such a great deal of courage that pretending to be deaf becomes a more convenient choice, just as is happening now: there is always an interest at stake, many people are preferring not to speak, things are not in the right order or not proceeding well enough, someone is taking advantage of the situation and another follows suit. No, I don't think the youth can understand this. They are living in a world that has totally changed at the level of communicating, like… let's start from the beginning; subject number one: food. We belong to those who used to scrape the table for bits of bread, remember this? Anything edible that could help in continuing to survive was good food: half-rotten windfalls were picked up, washed and used for producing marmalade, with very little sugar, or otherwise with saccharine or something else. Now, just try to imagine with how many chances one would be able to speak to a youngster of today saying, 'are you aware that these things you now see all come from the things of the past?'

So what, if today we possess enormous powers to counteract nature, let's say, whenever we want? Personally, I have never even tried to narrate these things to the youth. As far as freedom is concerned, I nevertheless feel it would be necessary for them to understand that some of the things being done today could have very serious consequences afterwards. This, of course, would really depend on their capacity to appreciate liberty. If liberty only means the right to have fun and to wear fashionable attire, then this is not freedom from nothing, or almost nothing. True liberty is the freedom of thought, of action, of association; this is what really matters. These treasures are always kept hidden away from us by the mass media, by politics and by the authorities. It would just be sufficient to disseminate the information about the two thousand million people in the world who are dying of hunger, whereas five hundred million people are, in the meantime, throwing away food; something really incredible. Well, a short while ago I declared that there is a fascist inside each one of us: there is a fascist and a nazi, there is a racist; the worst racist one could ever imagine. Unfortunately, I am equally afraid to say that even the poor people who migrate in search of a place in which to a little bit better are motivated, in the beginning, by materialistic interest. What is worse, however, is that they too should end up convincing themselves as being part of this; which is something really terrible. It would have been better to live in a different way. Personally I am one of those… look, I will tell you what I said to a Monsignor the other day. I said, ‘the SS had an inscription written on their belts that said, "God is with us", but personally, it didn’t really seem to me that God could have been with the SS.’ Now, I am somebody really insignificant, and so forth, but still would expect the pope at least to say something against this nazi policy, especially with all the massacres that took place, and of which I myself was an eye-witness. Well, Nazism came to an end, or so it would seem, and so did fascism; but I am still waiting for the pope to say something serious. Instead what does he do; he asks for forgiveness for things of a thousand years ago! You had better not record anything of what I have said in this last part…

I would really think so, I am not… I mean to say… apart from having found something to do to earn a living, having a bit… of relation with the rest of society that would not be forced, without difficulties, so as to be able to carry on struggling. What I actually mean to say is that I haven't changed even a little, and that I still interpret things in the very same way as I did on that 28^th of February at 5.30 p.m. on my way down from the Highland of Asiago. Nevertheless, I must admit that I had spent the fifteen years precedent to this turning point in other commitments. But even though these were less political by nature, I had, all the same, carried them out with the same verve and using the same interpretations, that's it. I was one who would never give in on liberty: already at the age of five or six years, I don't know, I would get up and say, 'Now I will go to the Brenta and have a swim.' I was only five years old, and the Brenta was as far as four kilometres away! By then there were… thunderstorms, but not even these could stop me. And my mother would say, 'how irresponsible you really are!'; ' I am responsible', would be my answer, and a moment later I was on my way, leaving her with no other option but to let me go. Of course afterwards my mother would be forced to walk right up to the banks of the Brenta looking for me. Nobody will believe you if you tell them that I wasn't even six years old them, but the truth is that I was able to make my own choices long before. It was a personal war, let's put it this way: I have always been at war. So, there we are… do you have some other question?