A Civil War (136 page)

149
See, on the first case, ‘Surrogati' (understood as ‘sexual surrogates'), an article in
La Fiamma
, ‘organ of the Comitato di coordinamento femminile' (Genoa?), March 1945; on the second case, see ‘Quelle in sahariana',
La Nuova Realtà
, ‘organ of the Movimento femminile Giustizia e Libertà' (Piedmont), 27 February 1945.

150
Letter from the carpenter Violante Momesso to his mother. Shot by the Fascists in Venice on 28 July 1944 (
LRI
, p. 147).

151
Testimony of Gianna Angelini, in Portelli,
Biografia di una città
, p. 277. Battaglia speaks of a girl who asked to be allowed to shoot, in
Un uomo
, pp. 206–7.

152
Testimony of Anna Cherchi, from a peasant family, born in 1924 (Bravo and Jalla,
La vita offesa
, p. 85).

153
Testimony of Luigia Varusco, born in 1890, whose regrets included not having been able to ground her own identity in her own efforts (Passerini,
Torino operaia
, p. 55).

154
On the recourse to seduction in order to trick the Fascists and Germans, see Bruzzone and Farina,
La Resistenza taciuta
, and L. Mariani,
Quelle dell'idea. Storie di detenute politiche 1927–1948
, Bari: De Donato, 1982, p. 150.

155
The testimony of Elsa Oliva appears in Bruzzone and Farina,
La Resistenza taciuta
, pp. 118–44. The quotes in the text appear on pp. 125, 126, 138, 130–31, 140.

156
Testimonies of Albina Caviglione Lusso and Tersilla Fenoglio Oppedisano, ibid., pp. 69, 155.

157
Letter from the
liceo
student Anka Knežcvic to her brother. She was shot in April 1944 (
LRE
, p. 590).

158
See G. Crainz, ‘La ‘legittimazione' della Resistenza. Dalla crisi del centrismo alla vigilia del '68', in
Problemi del socialism
7 (January–April 1987), p. 76.

159
Bruzzone and Farina,
La Resistenza taciuta
, esp. p. 39.

160
Ibid., p. 88. See also the testimony of Teresa Bosco, in Guidetti Serra,
Compagne
, vol. I, p. 46.

161
Testimony of Carolina Griffanti, in Passerini,
Torino operaia
, p. 23. Note also the episode recounted by Nelia Benissone Costa: ‘Upon Liberation, the partisans wanted to go and grab the woman who had made the denunciation, but the mother was opposed' (Bruzzone and Farina,
La Resistenza taciuta
, p. 53).

162
Letter from the Command of the Turin SAP division to the Command of the 1
^st
Sector, 15 January 1945 (cited in
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. III, p. 237, n. 2).

163
Testimony of Teresa Cirio (Bruzzone and Farina,
La Resistenza taciuta
, p. 83).

164
Atti CVL
, pp. 187–8. The detachment (of thirty-eight women) was set up alongside the 19
^th
Garibaldi brigade ‘Eusebio Giamone'. It was Vittorio Foa who told me of the GL's reaction to the uncouth suggestion of a gynaecological check-up. On the tension between women's traditional roles and their handling weapons, see L. Passerini, ‘Ferite della memoria. Immaginario e ideologia in una storia recente', and B. Guidetti Serra, ‘Donne, violenza, politica, armi: una esperienza giudiziaria',
Rivista di storia contemporanea
XVII (1988), pp. 173–245 (p. 231 features three testimonies of partisan women, one opposed to shooting a gun, one undecided and one in favour: the latter woman is Elsa Oliva); R. Anni, D. Lusiardi, G. Sciola and M. R. Zamboni,
I gesti e i sentimenti: le donne nella Resistenza bresciana
, Introduction by L. Passerini, Brescia: Tipografia Quiriniana, 1990.

165
Minutes of the ‘Delegazione del PCI per l'Italia meridionale', 8 May 1944 (IG,
Archivio PCI
, ‘Direzione. Verbali riunioni 1944').

166
Open letter from ‘a political commissar' and ‘a commander' to ‘Our mothers, wives, sisters' in an undated special issue of
Noi donne
dedicated to the ‘Volontarie della libertà'.

167
This testimony appears in Bruzzone and Farina, eds,
La Resistenza taciuta
, p. 141.

168
Fenoglio,
I ventitré giorni
, p. 9.

169
Tersilla Fenoglio Oppedisano adds: ‘Now I no longer make any judgments, but then I did' (Bruzzone and Farina, eds,
La Resistenza taciuta
, p. 160).

170
Considerations advanced by the student Emanuela Cortopassi in a seminar at the Modern and Contemporary History Department of Pisa University, in 1982.

171
See the testimony of Teresa Bosco, in Guidetti Serra,
Compagne
, vol. I, p. 43, and Gobetti,
Diario partigiano
, pp. 72–3. Nor did Gobetti like
Noi donne
as a title for the paper: ‘But I accepted it, certainly, when they told me that it had already been the name of a women's paper in Spain, during the revolution' (ibid., p. 139, 9 June 1944).

172
See, for example, the paper
Quatre-Vingt-Treize
, published by the ‘marraines du Détachement Victor Hugo'. The first issue, from 22 October 1943, contains this appeal: ‘Do not forget, Hitlerites, that we are the descendants of the women of the French Revolution, those women who did not hesitate to throw themselves into the struggle together with the Revolutionaries.' The header of the second issue, 11 November 1943, featured the image of a woman exhorting others to battle, sword in hand, in tune with the iconography of 1870. In the February 1944 header of another paper,
14 juillet. Organe des marraines de la compagnie des francs-tireurs et partisans Français ‘Les Trois Glorieuses'
, there appeared on one side a man with a Phrygian cap, and on the other a proletarian in Third Internationalist style: each of the two men, who held a banner bearing the legend
14 juillet
, had a woman at their side, albeit of rather anodyne appearance.

173
‘L' opera del clero e i partigiani',
Le Messager Valdôtain 1946
.

174
The Valtoce division had adopted the name of its commander, fallen in battle.

175
Tramontin,
Il clero italiano e la Resistenza
, p. 20 (with other examples and bibliographic references). On don Sisto and his relations with Moscatelli's Garibaldians, see
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. III, p. 34.

176
See the contribution by G. Bianchi in
Aspetti religiosi della Resistenza
, pp. 73–4, quoted in Tramontin,
Il clero italiano e la Resistenza
, p. 20; Battaglia,
Un uomo
, p. 212 (see also p. 216).

177
Norberto Bobbio insisted on this point in a seminar held at Turin's Centro Gobetti on 28 April 1980.

178
Rousseau,
The Social Contract
, Book II, §5. See J. Goulet, ‘Robespierre, la peine de mort et la Terreur', in
Annales historiques de la Révolution française
LXIII (1981), p. 219.

179
‘Giustizia partigiana',
Il Partigiano alpino
, Piedmont edition, August 1944 (cited in Falaschi,
La Resistenza armata
, p. 23).

180
Report from the Montes organisation, December 1944, in Mautino,
Guerra di popolo
, p. 115. Note the episode recounted by Battaglia,
Un uomo
, p. 215, where a partisan killed two Germans who asked for his papers.

181
F. Caracciolo di Castagneto,
'43–'44. Diario di Napoli
, Florence: Vallecchi, 1964, p. 49 (29 September 1943 entry).

182
Testimony of the partisan Moretto (Guido Cavalcabò), in G. and E. Varlecchi,
Potente
, p. 232.

183
See the box ‘Sangue' in
Risorgimento Liberale
, Rome edition, 5 May 1944.

184
Artom,
Diari
, 8, 11 and 16 December 1943 (pp. 112, 115, 125).

185
Fenoglio,
I ventitré giorni
, p. 9: ‘romantic, tremendous names, from Rolando to “Dynamite” '.

186
Ibid.

187
‘Istituto nazionale per la storia del movimento di liberazione in Italia' (‘National institute for the history of the liberation movement in Italy') was the name that Ferruccio Parri chose in 1949. The local institutes that sprang up in subsequent years, however, largely instead adopted names referring to ‘the history of the Resistance' or similar.

188
According to ‘Fuori dall'equivoco. Variazioni', in
La Voce del Popolo
, 15 March 1944.

189
The text was published in
L'Italia Libera
, Paris, 1 February 1945. Here, we read, ‘We are particularly close to the people of France, which has been able to write the heroic pages of the Resistance, a name that has now become epic, European.'

190
‘Al popolo italiano, agli amici, ai nemici',
La Libertà
(Tuscany), 27 October 1943.

191
The text of the agreement appears in Catalano,
Storia del CLNAI
, pp. 339–40.

192
An example of the leaflet is held at the MRB.

193
‘Resistenza passiva', signed by ‘the man in the street',
La Punta
, 28 February 1944.

194
See
L'Unità
,
L'Italia Libera
and
Voce Operaia
.

195
‘Non c'è tempo da perdere' (‘No time to lose'), northern edition, 10 January 1944.

196
IVSR,
Stampa antifascista
.

197
Letter from the Command of the 40
^th
Matteotti brigade to the ‘Delegazione Comando e al Comando regionale (unificato) lombardo', 20 July 1944 (IG,
BG
, 0507).

198
Subtitle of the article ‘La strage di Ferrara', Rome edition, 29 November 1943.

199
Bernardo,
Il momento buono
, p. 31.

1
Letter of 8 October 1944 to the lieutenant colonel Pier Alessandro Vanni, commander of the formations deployed across the Casotto, Mongia and Tanaro valleys (INSMLI,
CVL
, envelope 27, folder 2, subfolder 1); I thank Gabriella Solaro for making me aware of their existence.

2
Report from the political commissar of the Piedmont Command of the GL formations, Giorgio Agosti, 31 December 1944. Agosti refers to the ‘numerous shootings of common criminals, in some cases also our partisans' (
Formazioni GL
, pp. 267–86).

3
Revelli,
La guerra dei poveri
, p. 144 (16 October 1943), p. 177 (29 February 1944), and p. 184 (15 March 1944). See the comments of the partisan Gin, from the Ligurian-Emilian Appenines: ‘They want to make us live by stealing, so that tomorrow they might blackmail and slander us' (Lazagna,
Ponte rotto
, p. 155).

4
Conversation of the author with Nuto Revelli. Some Jews took refuge in Demonte, escaping the arrests of those who had been locked up in the Borgo San Dalmazzo camp after having come from Saint-Martin-Vésubie. On this affair, which speaks well of the Italian troops occupying southern France, see A. Cavaglion,
Nella notte straniera. Gli Ebrei di Saint-Martin-Vésubie. 8 settembre – 21 novembre 1943
, Cuneo: L'Arciere, 1991.

5
Artom,
Diari
, p. 93 (28 November 1943); see also p. 141 (28 December 1943).

6
Dellavalle,
Operai
, p. 84; Quazza,
Un diario partigiano
, pp. 154–6 (December 1943); Mautino,
Guerra di popolo
, p. 42; Battaglia,
Un uomo
, p. 130.

7
C.'s report ‘on the first visit to the partisan formations in the Foligno zone', 3 February 1944 (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. I, p. 252).

8
‘Informazioni per l'Ufficio di organizzazione', Turin, 10 October 1943 (Secchia,
Il PCI e la guerra di liberazione
, p. 122).

9
Circular from the ‘Comando unificato Divisioni Valsesia Divisioni Ossola', 6 September 1944 (IG,
BG
, 06274).

10
Letter from the Command of the 40
^th
Matteotti brigade (Valtellina) to Onit Nass, 14 July 1944 (ibid., 0490). On Onit Nass (Sandro Costantino), commander of the Gek group, see the letter from the Command of the 40
^th
brigade to the vicar of Roncaglia, 14 July 1944 (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. II, pp. 123–4 and the relevant notes).

11
Letter from the Command of the Nanetti division to the Command of the Mazzini and Tollot brigades, 29 August 1944, and related attachments (ibid., pp. 283–9).

12
Circular of 12 February 1945, ‘Inquadramento, disciplina, organizzazione' (INSMLI,
CVL
, envelope 93, folder 5, subfolder a).

13
Letter from the regional military command in the Veneto to the Vicenza provincial command, 15 September 1944, held at the Istituto veneto per la storia della Resistenza. Bernardo passes very severe judgment on Marozin:
Il momento buono
, pp. 76–8. Nor was there any succour for Marozin in the
Enciclopedia dell'antifascismo e della Resistenza
, insofar as he is named in the piece devoted to the Pasubio division, written by Renato Sandri.

14
Minutes of the January 1945 and late September 1944 meetings of the Comando Piazza di Torino, in Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi,
L'insurrezione di Torino
, pp. 116, 95. On the sense of alarm that arose among Turin's Communists, on this score, see the warning sent to SAP companies, 25 January 1945 (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. III, pp. 283–4) and the 15 June 1944
Grido di Spartaco
's denunciation of ‘Il nuovo Risorgimento italiano, movimento antitotalitario d'ordine e di ricostruzione' as a ‘White Guard Movement'.