Regarding my personal experience; well, let’s say, I come from a family of workers, and which therefore means bearing in mind everything that this would actually imply in terms of having to work in order to eat, using purchase vouchers in order to make ends meet, and indeed all the consequences related to this setting. For example, since we children were still too small, they would send us to queue up with coupons for bread in front of the bakery very early in the morning at 5.00 a.m. The bakery would open at 8.00 a.m. Now, the problem was that this baker happened to be a profound Fascist, and so the guy simply didn't tolerate any kind of confusion in front of his bakery. These were the words with which he would normally scream at us: "If you want bread, you can go to Germany!"

So, why was it that they would send us the children with the coupons to go and collect bread? It was because, had it been the more elderly people who would have gone, say a man or a woman, they were likely would have ended up having a row with the baker. They would then have been accused, and successively subjected to detention. That is why it was we the children who were always up in front of the queue, and it wasn't because we were compelled to do so… let's say, we were only forced to save our own parents…

My name is Angelo Simonini, and I live in San Cesario di Modena. My experience during the time of war: I was born during the Fascist era, in 1931… Well, I was in fact talking about the behaviour, that is… Oh my God! Oh my God…! Of the baker; about how it came to be that it was the children were then sent to… queue up in front of the bakery, or even the drug stores and the butcheries; simply due to the fact that since they were children they certainly wouldn't have made a lot of fuss about having received a slap in the face or something, from these characters who were downright Fascists. And even if we children ever dared utter something in response, there still wasn't anything much they could say. However if the same thing were done by an older person - well, it wouldn't really have mattered whether he had truly said some bad word or not, he would automatically have ended up being accused and thereafter detained. Such, in fact, had been the fate of my uncle, poor thing, who for political reasons and so forth died, unfortunately, at the age of forty-six. He had remained jobless after coming back home from Africa, and one evening while chatting about this and that with friends, there happened to be a man in the group who boasted about the all job opportunities that there were - and this guy… Well, this guy was really a spokesman of the Fascists, who was actually carrying out his duties, and had his Fascist membership card in the pocket. My uncle, on his part, had his good reasons for not possessing one of these cards, for he was a sworn anti-Fascist. In a few words, he couldn't take it anymore, and let go… a "raspberry" at this guy saying, 'Half of this is for you, and the other half is for Uncle!' - and by "Uncle" he was quite naturally referring to the "Duce"! Twenty-four hours later the poor devil was already at Sant'Eufemia in Modena, and for him that marked the beginning of the end. Every morning they would bring a coffin in front of his door for him to see: they would open the cell door and tell him, 'Tomorrow you will go right inside!' The young man eventually fell sick and had to be released from prison. He came out, and was free for I don’t know how long, then fell sick again, and died thereafter at the age of forty-six: the experience had left him so terribly frightened… Yes. This, unfortunately for him, was how things had tragically ended. However, many other things also happened concerning… people who, in one way or the other, had to do with the partisans - people who were well known to us, and yet never spied upon by anybody. In fact there were quite a lot of anti-fascists here; people who had been victims of detention, people who… So many are the names of… I can’t remember them all. Those who were persecuted for not having… How could I put this… in order to be able to work, in those days one had to have the Fascist membership card? Such people categorically refused to acquire the Fasces membership cards, and therefore did not go to work but tried to manage as best they could. Of course, they also had their families, just like everybody else, and their daily commitments as well; but these were people with a character of their own, most of them being old time Socialists. Unfortunately, they were therefore condemned to facing the kind of fate that they actually did, poor things! Nevertheless, they were able to remain faithful to their ideas, and were people who did not sell their… how do you say it… personal dignity for these kind things.

Then came the war, and so we were caught up in the bombardments. In the countryside whenever the peasants would see us… Well, at times as they baked their bread, we children would happen to be passing by, and would smell it. The "resdor", let's say the family head, therefore had to break some bread and give us a piece each, poor thing. However, we ourselves would never eat it at all, but would carry this piece of bread all the way home. Of course, eating it up was the most logical thing for us, considering the scarcity of food that there was. Nevertheless, for me it was still a bigger satisfaction taking this piece of bread back home, and showing it to my mother, or to her… or to my father, and then we divided it.

Then, when the bombings and the machine-gunning from the air grew intense, we were evacuated into the countryside with the peasants. We slept inside the stables and the barns and so on. And so, each morning the family head of these peasants, would pick up a pail, milk a cow or two, and give the milk to us… to all of these children; since the people who had a certain age had to remain hidden, because had they been discovered, they automatically would have been rounded up, and taken away, and so on. Therefore there always were only elderly people, children and old women: the rest of the youth were never to be seen around. But I also remember that at night, from these farmhouses, one would always hear something moving about in the countryside, and so forth. And so we would ask the cattleman, 'But, how come we always hear something moving around; is there someone outside?' And he would say, 'Oh, it’s only a horse that has escaped. I will go and bring it back inside at once, or perhaps I can wait till tomorrow morning.' Well, it was actually the partisans passing through the countryside, for they knew that they could pass through these places without being disturbed, as they went on their way to do what they had to do – acts of sabotage, or whatever it was.

We remained in the countryside for about a year, one and a half years in the countryside. Thinking about it, one would really wonder how these peasants managed to sustain all these people. The kindness with which they treated us, for they indeed were extremely kind to us. We were not even in any way related to them, and yet in their generosity they accepted to feed us; give us something to eat. And I remember that at night, my father would try to help these peasants… they would go out to harvest the wheat, because it was dangerous doing this during the day-time since the planes would often swoop down and open fire - whereas at night, with the hatchet… what was it called… the scythe, they went to reap the wheat for one of the peasants, just as much as this peasant himself would then, in his turn, always try to provide something to help.

Then there also were the Americans, who were bombing us with those "plaquettes" - which I very well remember were the inflammable ones! They would drop them into the wheat fields and set everything on fire, right? And this, of course, was their own way of carrying out sabotage. Then again there were those famous "explosive" fountain pens, as well as many other gadgets that children… Dolls, for example, were particularly dangerous, and children were therefore forbidden… They would always say, "Make sure you don't touch anything: don’t pick up anything; don’t go around picking up things that you see lying on the ground! And it was… Yes, they did it for sabotage, or otherwise for… Well, for me, far from being acts of sabotage, this was downright vandalism! Anyhow, it certainly didn't make any difference to them - after all, they undoubtedly knew that it was the little children, and not grown-up people, would have gone around picking up these things. And therefore, there actually were so many hardships that I wouldn't know where to start listing them…

Oh, the bombing raids! Well, one day… at first I had started… I was in front of the house with my mother and my brothers; they sounded the siren and we had to flee. They bombarded Forte Urbano, which is in Castlefranco, for a number of politicians and anti-Fascist people were holding a gathering inside; and as they were coming bac… while returning, they were bombarded. The planes would unload all their bombs before flying back; and then the anti-aircraft canons hit a "Flying Fortress"; and as we fled we ended up right below this "Flying Fortress" as it came down, and were almost crushed by it. We were actually trying to cross the frontier and go beyond the Gothic Line: well, they simply released all their bombs; dropped down everything on us, and these were all concentrated in a very brief time span; in just about thirty minutes! All over the place there were huge holes created by the bombs, and these were already filled with water. They were bottom… These holes were really deep, and consequently we all managed to survive. There were twelve of us; including the Righis, and so on. And on our way back, there were these rows of vines, right? Now, these were the days in which elms were used for propping up the vines; and so there were elms, thirty or forty centimetres in diameter, that were snapped about half a metre from the ground as if they had been sawn off: it was the shrapnel from the bombs that cut… that had cut these trees. Yes, I mean, cut them completely! Therefore, we were lucky to have been in the holes, for if someone had been standing, very little would have been left of him!

Then on another occasion we happened to be right in the middle of the town, a hoard of us young people, when an aeroplane swooped down on us form the direction of Piumazzo, perhaps mistaking us for a group of soldiers or a public rally… well, it simply started showering shots and shells at us! A friend of mine and I managed to survive by diving for cover behind the built up edge of a well which was one and a half metres high from the ground. We hid behind this, but you should have seen the iron sheet with which the well was covered… it had holes this big, all over it! Well, this is happens to be one of those episodes. An experience… This is one of those very tragic experiences which I will always recall, and which I often still dream about.

Our playground used to be the Panaro, whenever we wanted to do "vitupè". Each time we wanted to do something… mischievous, so to say; some bravado or simply children’s games, we would go to the Panaro - and the Panaro by that time was frozen. And we would throw stone on its frozen surface to watch them slide away, and so on. Now, on one occasion after we had been there for a while, and had finished playing and doing all this – because, by the way, our shoes were nothing more than wooden clogs: we did not have shoes but wooden clogs, and we wore these at home, during summer, during winter, at school, in church; such that when all of us passed together, we seemed to be a pack of… of… click-clock, click-clock; well, that was no problem. So, that day when we came out from Panaro, I found a beret and I simply put it on. Then a friend of mine who was walking behind me said, ‘Look, you have got a hole in your cap; I mean, in the beret that you picked up!’ ‘Well, it doesn’t belong to me,’ I replied. I took it off from my head; and, guess what? Inside there was a piece of human brain, and I immediately threw it away! This friend of mine therefore said, ‘Well, if what we saw is true, there sure must be something behind it.’ So we went to the other side of this wall… onto a piece of flat ground situated on the other side, and it was then that we discovered those nine… there were eleven of them… Eleven! And there also was that famous lady, receiver of a medal for valour in saving abandoned children… The poor woman was actually pregnant; and they had cut off her breasts, pulled out her eyes, and all those things… There were hands, forelocks and shoe tips sticking out of the snow! And that is something that I will never forget, and am quite unable to forget; for, being the small boy I myself was at that time, seeing something of this kind certainly didn’t represent just a slight trauma… for me. Then, of course, there also were many other episodes: my friend Severino, who they killed at Canova – the one we used to call "Brontolo" (Grumbler), poor thing – and Girotti, who was killed at Graziosa. All these were boys with whom I used to go to school together.

Well, yes of course. My name is Gasperi Rosanna, I was born in Concordia, and now live in San Cesario with my husband. My personal memories regarding the period we are talking about are quite poor because by then I was really nothing but a small child, and therefore not yet mature enough to understand. But, I will anyhow try to tell you the little that I am able to recall…

I remember that when I heard… by then we were still living in Soliero… the declaration of war by Mussolini… I can still clearly remember that distinct voice: it was that of Benito Mussolini! There was this "dopolavoro" (leisure time recreation facility for workers). I was coming out from the church on that same side, and beside the church there was the so-called recreation centre for workers. There was a radio, a box as big as this, outside this place, and there were… one could see that… some already knew about it: in fact there were people crowded right in front of the place, even if it normally wasn't so full of people on any given day. They were all standing still: some with their legs astride their bicycles… Well, there were still no cars by then. And so, there were lots and lots of people there, and I could hear the "Duce", who in fact was making a speech, saying: 'do you want to go to war?" And then came the reply, "Yes!!!" which I was able to hear there and then, and directly from the radio; meanwhile outside… After this he went on with his speech and made some affirmations, which were impossible for me to understand at the age of seven: I must have been only seven or eight years old then! After the speech was over, all those who were there, held their heads in between their hands and began grumbling. The crowd, the adult people, then dispersed and went away.

I ran all the way home to tell my parents the news… according to me it wasn't anything bad: I had heard the "Duce" speaking; heard his voice! As a matter of fact, we hadn't a radio in our house, for we didn't own one, and therefore for me it was something… listening to the radio. I arrived home - and I can remember it as if it had just happened! There was one of my uncles, my father’s brother, who was shaving his beard; there were… Well, they were outside, and so I made my announcement, 'you know? I heard the "Duce" speaking: he asked if they wanted to go to war, and they said "yes"; so now there is a war!' I explained what had happened at home, and noticed that they made the very same gestures that I had seen in the square before: "This is the end…!" Well, I just wasn't able to understand yet that war wasn't a really lovely thing. Personally, I was so happy because I had heard the "Duce" speak. This was in fact one of those nice topics we were used to chatting about at school, and so to me it was something quite…

Then as time passed I grew up; Let's see… We moved to a new home. And it was then that things became… I myself was able to understood what war meant, because for all the time that the war had remained far away it had simply been impossible for one to understand. Afterwards, as it drew closer slowly by slowly… And by the way, as for my uncles, I must say they were absolutely right to be sad, and to grumble, and to at least say something: by then I myself really wasn't in a position to understand, whereas the same thing actually didn't apply to them. As a matter of fact, four of them eventually had to leave for the war front! One went to Greece, Leandro… One to Greece, one to Africa, and another of them died later over-there in Naples… Where was Leardo…? Well, practically four brothers… My grandmother had four during the First World War, and four during the Second World War, and by the way one of these never came back again… he died away form home.

ANGELO: Of the eight of them that there were, was it only one who survived?

ROSANNA: Yes. Then bit-by-bit the war also arrived here where we lived. For me, as far as bombings were concerned… they simply passed over us; there were actually no direct bombings aimed at us since were in the countryside… It was something that had more to do with the town; we ourselves were in the countryside. But we did experience the mopping-up operations. We had these "Little Republicans", as we used to call them, and then there were the partisans as well. There were both those from one side and those from the other moving around from time to time… At the beginning we were quite naïve, for we really weren't aware of what was taking place. Let me just narrate to you one episode as an example: I once happened to be about the countryside collecting grass when I heard the sound of a shoot-out – as it were, we the children were already trained, because in those days one had to grow up quickly, and there wasn't… for they would simply put all types of dangers right there in front of you: "You have to be careful… You mustn’t go… You mustn’t do…" So, I was by the countryside when, suddenly, "bang-bang-bang!" It was machine-gun fire, and instinctively I took cover. It ended; I finished collecting my grass and returned home… as if nothing had happened, for by now we had got quite used to hearing gunshots. And in the evenings when we were already in bed, you could see the flares from the shooting that was going on around… probably machine-gun fire, I don’t know… Therefore we were a bit used to it.

From that very day… Well, I went back home, and after an hour or two, five or six men arrived. 'Come on, move!' - they were actually talking to my father. 'Get moving - let’s go! We have to flee because two Germans have been killed over there on the road, and so you can imagine what they will do tomorrow morning… either tonight or tomorrow morning…' In fact for every single German who got killed, they would execute, they would hang f… ten Italians! In this case, therefore, they practically would have had to hang twenty Italians! They would do their mopping-up operations, for we called them in ourselves. And so this is the reason why all the men, including my father, had to go away, leaving at home only us the women and the children. My father fled, and stayed away for two or three days… I don’t exactly know, and cannot even remember anymore, but I know for sure that he was away for a while - for some days - and yet no mopping-up operation arrived. They therefore returned home, and he said: 'Now, when we will know…' My father returned home; he came back home, and after two days at home, it was winter… And then there was all that snow; so much snow - I am being quite specific about the snow because there is an episode to narrate afterwards. The snow had heaped up really high - this high - and then there was the cold too: it was really so cold that as we the children went to school, we did not take the road… but the countryside… we went right across, because the snow was so thick that we could walk on the surface without sinking: it was really much… and frozen as well!

Then suddenly there came the… We heard the shooting… came out, and… they were already there; the "Republicans…!" The "Little Republicans," as we used to call them. There was my father and an elderly uncle of mine who was a veteran of the First World War, and was actually so old the two of them hadn't any chance of getting away together. We looked behind the house: there was a man… Because we once used to put… now I can't remember what it is actually called… maize stalks; we used to tie them up into bundles and then lean these against a tree. So we looked behind the house and heard the shootings. There was this man there, and we couldn't tell why. We were all terror stricken - we the children, but even my father himself. This man was seated there, with all the bloody… Fascists, in their hobnailed boots, all over the place and singing: "Our lips have sworn either to win or to die!" Here we were, terrorised to death, while this guy was just sitting there beside the tree against which we had placed our bundles. Terrorised, my father said, 'That guy over there must be thinking about coming here, setting our house on fire, and killing all of us!' And while my father was still saying this, we heard the sound of footsteps running, running, and running! Suddenly, three other people appeared; three young men who they were convinced must have belonged to the "Republic of Salò" since they were of the rightful age for military service. It soon became clear, however, that they too were partisans: these boys had literally run straight into our premises when the mopping-up operations were unleashed, and without first having had to ask my father, my grandmother, or some other person. Now, we happened to have a hayloft, and therefore they simply took the ladder, went up into this and hid themselves there… and in the process sent hay falling down through the gaps in the hayloft floor… And they did all this without ever asking anybody even a thing - except for the fact that we had, of course, seen them. My father had seen them too, and was so scared about having to die for this that, I don't know. He was terribly shocked that he fell to the ground and fainted, and we therefore had to take him to bed, my poor Dad. And even as we were doing this, through my father’s window we could hear the bursts of machine-gun fire and the screaming that was coming from outside our house. Quite luckily for us, the man who had sat near the tree had in fact finally decided to seek refuge in the neighbouring house, instead of running to ours. Nevertheless, my father couldn't avoid fainting due to all that terror that was connected with this: there were those three up there in the hay-loft, and yet another, who instead of running to us had chosen to run… But, we did hear the screams all right; for they were hit… they caught up with him, and began hitting him… and from our house we could even hear the thuds of the blows they were giving him. 'And how many of them do you have in here?' they had asked the peasant, who had then replied, 'Not even one! This one has just arrived here, and this explains why you have been able to capture him: he came straight into the stable…' And so, this is how they actually captured this man.

Then they left them; they left their premises and came over to ours; the bloody Fascists – I think there were seven or eight of them. We were all around at house… because my grandmother had wanted to run back in order to remove the ladder: the three boys had actually hurriedly climbed up into the hay-loft leaving the ladder right there, and it was therefore obvious that once these men arrived, they too would automatically go into the hay-loft to go and see. She did not make it in time because the men were already there… just like that… And so my grandmother, poor thing…! Since the son, that is to say my father, had been awfully frightened, had fainted and had had to be taken to bed by us… well, she boldly went outside and asked them, ‘What do you want?’ She actually questioned them as if she herself were their mother: ‘What do you boys want?’ ‘Madam, are there any partisans here?’ ‘What kind of partisans? I have four sons fighting in the war, and four more …’ and she went on explaining to these boys… ‘All right, all right! Just carry this for me’. Now, what they had handed to my grandmother was actually a bag full of hand grenades. ‘Hold this tight, and come with me.’ And so they went quite close to hayloft; but, in fact by the side of the hayloft there actually was the baking platform, a place for the chicken, and a small room were I kept my rabbits. And the man said… Well, it was quite a matter of good luck, for the ladder just happened not to be in this particular point, but was near the baking platform, since they had actually put some of their things onto this. They took the ladder away from here, then went and looked into the chicken place, into this other thing, but there was nothing here. From there where the ladder had actually been, the boys could hear each and everything of the conversation that… my grandmother simply continued chatting away: ‘But, what is it that you want, boys? Because I …’ just like that. And then: ‘so how many children have you got? Where are they?’ asked the man. ‘I have one, but he is in bed, ill’ ‘Ill from what?’ ‘Oh, you know guys, when he saw you people he… being so ingenuous, when he saw you, he got a little bit too scared and so we had to take him to bed.’ ‘All right then, let’s go and see him.’ It was really smart of her to have spoken out, for they then passed right in front of the hay-loft without stopping to look inside: in fact, it was only afterwards that they told us they were actually armed, and informed us that if ever that "Small Republican" had dared go up, he never would have come back down alive! And so, there was this ladder right there, but still the man did not go up… And so they fell right back, and entered into the house because they wanted to see my father; this son of hers who is in bed, that is to say. And as this guy passed – since we always stocked with "salame", because pigs were actually home slaughtered in those days – I don’t know whether this is still the case today. Well, there was plenty of "salame" and so this guy said… he just pulled down two "salami" for himself and placed them over the hand grenades - on the bag with the hand grenades. He simply said, ‘I will take this for myself,’ and took them.

Successively, he came down again and began questioning us, ‘What do you have in front there?’ Now, as I was telling you in the beginning, in our compound there were these bundles… And we had – I mean, we the kids, the children – guinea pigs… this is what we used to call them… guinea pigs… Well, we had hidden them… In front of the house there was this tree, which was covered all the way round by bundles of maize stalk, and so we created a hole in these through which we then put the guinea pigs inside. They started saying, ‘You have got a partisan hideout here; you are harbouring partisans!’ So they took aim with a machine gun; with a sub-machine gun… for I remember that every now and then they would lock us up in the stable: not in the house, because in the house we wouldn’t have been able to start up the heater. We had to stay in the stable. So, from time to time I would open the door, look outside and spot this machine-gun trained upon the house. They then called out to my uncle, the elderly one: ‘There is a partisan hideout over there!’ ‘No, that isn’t so. Look, I myself fought during the First World War, and I can tell… Well, it is impossible for one…’ Nothing doing: they got… they gave him a hoe, made him remove all of the bundles, and dig up the place. The ground was frozen all over, and I can’t even imagine how he was able to make such a big hole. And when they at last realised that there wasn’t anything there but only small guinea pigs, they stopped. ‘Well, if there had been a hideout here, we would have killed all of you and burnt down the house,’ the guy then said. We had really been… All things considered, we had indeed been lucky! Of course all of us were simply terrorised because… imagine my father, poor thing, who had fainted and ended up in bed. After this, they then went away; but of course we the children had already turned adults, and were already participating actively.

We actually were all terrorised because these Fascists had told us: ‘We’ll kill you all and burn down the house…!’ And we kids; we understood everything, even if in front of the adults we pretended not to have done so. In the evenings, with four brothers away, we had four… three empty beds, because yet another had got married and had therefore left the house. There… and therefore some partisans from the place… No, their relatives came one evening to ask us if they could come and sleep in the beds of our boys who were away fighting in the war, since they could not stay in their houses. And we children had pretended as if nothing was happening, but we in fact knew that in the evenings my father would place the ladder against the window so that they could come in through the window, and not by the door. And that is how these boys, these partisans, would then come to sleep. And therefore, to hear these Fascists saying, ‘We will burn down the house!’ You can imagine for yourself that a child of eight or nine years would have surely been terrorised to see all these things. In any case, in spite of all this we were still able to grow up: and according to me from then onwards, we children already knew adults about things that were for the adults – all the misery and fear of the time – and had to grow up in a hurry!

ANGELO: I had wanted to say something, if at all I were allowed to: at only ten years of age, we had the experience of a thirty year old! Because we already knew, for example, that when there was an explosion… the hole: jump in there… stomach up! Or else the angle of the house if we heard it from one direction… we were already so well trained, and without anybody ever having had to teach us anything because it was simply evident…!

ROSANNA: That isn’t quite the truth! Well, they did teach us something at school as well, for the teacher would say…

ANGELO: Of course! At school… they would teach us bla bla bla… Come on; just forget it!

ROSANNA: Well, I can’t! I mean, there… those were serious things as well… there really wasn’t any time for trivial things then!

ANGELO: Well, trivial things were quite scarce.