My worst memories are of dried egg, which was revolting, and of the cheese, which was mousetrap. I thought I didn’t like cheese until well after the war, when things went back to normal. I then discovered its delights. Clothes were also on coupons, and a new dress for a special occasion had to be hoarded for and sacrifices elsewhere had to be made. I was lucky in having an older sister whose...
My childhood memories consist mostly of always going to sleep with searchlights continously passing across the wall and the distant sound of bombs dropping and gun fire. During the day barrage balloons all across the sky and how nice and cosy and almost homely they looked. Air raid sirens and the feeling of dread they produced in your stomach.
She was picked up by first-aid men. They could barely tear her from the body of the dead woman. The girl called herself Liuda. She was silent, only her shoulders were jerking. At first Liudochka did not answer any questions, only asked everybody around her: “Where is my mammy?” People around her sympathized with her, tried to comfort her, and we, girls, cried bitterly.
This is an account of my years in Italy under Nazi occupation and of the series of events that took me there. It is, of course, an account of my own personal experience but I hope it will give some idea of what the Italian people suffered in 1944 in the Fascist Republic of Salò, during the later stages of the Second World War.
