Aroldo argued as well and in the end Patricio turned and stormed out, not happy. The book is scorched, some of the pages curled and I will have to be careful and make sure that he doesn’t see me writing in the book again.
Aroldo says that we should leave. He is certain that the war will soon be over, that the Anglo-Americans are gathering for one final push to retake the rest of Italy from the Germans. We are certainly getting more supplies, there are night drops daily with machine guns and ammunition and there have been more missions to break down the German defence. We have lost many men, but more are joining us as they realize that the end is coming soon. The Fascist government will be finished once and for all. Once we believed in el Duce and Fascism, but the war has destroyed everything in which we had faith and we can no longer trust in the men that were our leaders. If we can avoid invasion by Tito’s forces in Yugoslavia, and dominance by the Communists, we can possibly have a proper elected government, one chosen by the people. This, Patricio says, is what he is fighting for – a free Italy with a democratically elected government.
We can only dream. First there is a war to be won.
11 December
Well, now I know how the diary came to be scorched. I’m glad Lina saved it or else I wouldn’t have been able to read it. I’ve been going through some of the books that Mark brought me. It’s hard to line up what’s written in the books with what Lina has written in her diary. The book has something like, “The partisans fought in the hills around the Po Valley,” and that’s about it. Most of them talk about the Allies’ push up through the main part of Italy, steadily heading north and taking part in battle after battle. The only time the partisans are really mentioned is when massacres occurred because of something that the partisans did, or didn’t do but were suspected of doing. It didn’t seem to take much for the Germans to retaliate, but the partisans were just as good at killing the enemy or blowing things up.
There is one thing that I have found that may be significant. One of the books mentions a massacre in a town called Bardine, near Mont San Terenzo, on 19 August – the day that Lina was raped and her family murdered. Her rescuers mentioned that all the people in the village had been killed, and I wondered if it is the same event. I searched for it on the internet and found a report on former Nazis who had been given life sentences as recently as 2009 for massacres in that region. Apparently it took so long because the witness reports were only found in 1994, in a cupboard in Rome. The statements had been collected by British and American troops shortly after the war, and I wondered how they could have been forgotten for so long. There were names of the dead, some of whom were just children, which was really sad, but I couldn’t see Lina’s family amongst them. Maybe, because they lived on a farm and not in the village, they weren’t counted. Other websites show holiday homes for let. It all looks beautiful now, but I wonder what it was like back in 1944?
21 January
We have moved into a village, but it is temporary as we will have to move again shortly, we can’t stay in one place for too long. I would like to stay here, in a house with a bed and a proper roof, but it is too dangerous for the men to stay in one place for too long. When the women saw the state of my clothes, tight over my stomach, they collected dresses for me and threw my old clothes into the fire, for they were filthy and full of lice.
I have washed in warm water with soap, and I am dressed in clean clothes while I await the return of my husband, who has also gone to bathe and change into clean clothes supplied by the villagers. We have one night together in this bedroom before we move on. I’m nervous but not afraid. I know Aroldo will be gentle, besides there is nothing that can frighten me any more.
I have not
Aroldo says that we should leave. He is certain that the war will soon be over, that the Anglo-Americans are gathering for one final push to retake the rest of Italy from the Germans. We are certainly getting more supplies, there are night drops daily with machine guns and ammunition and there have been more missions to break down the German defence. We have lost many men, but more are joining us as they realize that the end is coming soon. The Fascist government will be finished once and for all. Once we believed in el Duce and Fascism, but the war has destroyed everything in which we had faith and we can no longer trust in the men that were our leaders. If we can avoid invasion by Tito’s forces in Yugoslavia, and dominance by the Communists, we can possibly have a proper elected government, one chosen by the people. This, Patricio says, is what he is fighting for – a free Italy with a democratically elected government.
We can only dream. First there is a war to be won.
11 December
Well, now I know how the diary came to be scorched. I’m glad Lina saved it or else I wouldn’t have been able to read it. I’ve been going through some of the books that Mark brought me. It’s hard to line up what’s written in the books with what Lina has written in her diary. The book has something like, “The partisans fought in the hills around the Po Valley,” and that’s about it. Most of them talk about the Allies’ push up through the main part of Italy, steadily heading north and taking part in battle after battle. The only time the partisans are really mentioned is when massacres occurred because of something that the partisans did, or didn’t do but were suspected of doing. It didn’t seem to take much for the Germans to retaliate, but the partisans were just as good at killing the enemy or blowing things up.
There is one thing that I have found that may be significant. One of the books mentions a massacre in a town called Bardine, near Mont San Terenzo, on 19 August – the day that Lina was raped and her family murdered. Her rescuers mentioned that all the people in the village had been killed, and I wondered if it is the same event. I searched for it on the internet and found a report on former Nazis who had been given life sentences as recently as 2009 for massacres in that region. Apparently it took so long because the witness reports were only found in 1994, in a cupboard in Rome. The statements had been collected by British and American troops shortly after the war, and I wondered how they could have been forgotten for so long. There were names of the dead, some of whom were just children, which was really sad, but I couldn’t see Lina’s family amongst them. Maybe, because they lived on a farm and not in the village, they weren’t counted. Other websites show holiday homes for let. It all looks beautiful now, but I wonder what it was like back in 1944?
21 January
We have moved into a village, but it is temporary as we will have to move again shortly, we can’t stay in one place for too long. I would like to stay here, in a house with a bed and a proper roof, but it is too dangerous for the men to stay in one place for too long. When the women saw the state of my clothes, tight over my stomach, they collected dresses for me and threw my old clothes into the fire, for they were filthy and full of lice.
I have washed in warm water with soap, and I am dressed in clean clothes while I await the return of my husband, who has also gone to bathe and change into clean clothes supplied by the villagers. We have one night together in this bedroom before we move on. I’m nervous but not afraid. I know Aroldo will be gentle, besides there is nothing that can frighten me any more.
I have not
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