We left one morning at about eleven o’clock and sped down the dry and dusty autostrada leading south. We stopped for lunch in Piacenza, a charming old-world town, its central streets crowded with traffic and pedestrians, but its side-streets quiet, dignified and with large wooden doors opening on to courtyards, and the windows shuttered to keep out the intense heat. There was a lime-green and white striped curtain in front of the restaurant door, and a small rather thirsty looking shrub in a wooden tub just beside it. Outside, sun and shade contrasted sharply like a slice cut from a large cake. Inside it was dim and cool, and there was the smell of fresh paint from some decorating work in progress.
It must have been about 3.30 p.m. when we reached Fontanellato, the village we were destined for. We turned off the main road at Fidenza, a small town on the Milan–Bologna main railway line, and proceeded inland along ever-narrower lanes with deep dykes on either side, to whose banks the knobbly roots of poplars and willows were clinging, or perhaps just a welter of long grass and weeds. There were windmill pumps here and there, and the crops seemed to be mainly Indian corn, lucerne or root crops – this was not a rice area. There were also some vines. The houses were of stone and mostly had stacks and a cattle shed or two near them.
At last we reached a tiny town, and entering the street skirted the moat of an ancient castle, which seemed to fill the centre of the town with its solid stone masonry and pointed towers, rather like those of the French châteaux. Turning up to our right, we left the castle behind and soon came to the Locale Grande, the main and only hotel in Fontanellato, which we were to make our HQ. Mine Host, we had been told, knew everyone in the village and around it, for this secluded little spot was not much more than a village built around its mediaeval fortress. We waved goodbye to Major Girling and were glad to penetrate the cool dark interior of the Locale. Soon we were chatting to the proprietor, Signor Bigi, who made one think of Figaro with his twinkling black eyes and cheerful and intelligent manner. His equally black-eyed and vivacious sister was also there, and with their help we had soon made out our programme and Signor Bigi had promised to find a pony and trap so that we could visit one or two outlying farms later on, when the cool of evening would make a drive easier and pleasanter. They showed us our rooms, on the first floor of the spotlessly clean little guest-house, and made us very welcome.
We then set off for the post office, opposite the castle, and acquired some addresses, which were ascertained by consulting the nominal roll of residents of the area. Quite a lot of information was available as to the whereabouts of the people we were seeking, as all the post office employees came to our assistance and most of them had friends or relatives of our people, or were living near them. The personal factor plays a very large part in business in Italy.
We set off in the trap at about five o’clock, and after passing a magnificent avenue of planes and sycamores, which skirted the opposite end of the town from which we had come, we proceeded along sandy lanes, still flanked by deep ditches, and sometimes also by thick thorn hedges. We were in the depths of the country and Milan and its hustle and bustle seemed a distant and almost forgotten world. There was an immense serenity about the countryside, still in the late afternoon sun, the birds chirping gently before retiring for the night and the cows plodding stolidly home to milking and rest. It seemed incongruous that in such places sorrow and privation should lurk, but so it was. One of the ‘helpers’ whom we had to visit was a widow whose husband had been sent to a concentration camp by the Germans for helping Allied escaped prisoners. He had never returned from the camp but had died there under the strain and brutal treatment. His widow was left with his farm to run and their two children, a boy and a girl, to bring up. Hers was a case of a ‘Death Claim’ and it was our job to hear her story, chat with her and elucidate some small points that were not clear in the story hitherto, after a previous investigation. Judy, in company with an Italian captain, dealt with Death Claims, and so I acted as her interpreter.
The family were all very sad and poor and hard-working. We were offered the customary glass of wine and saw the orchard outside the door, where apples were ripening and cows munching. Flies buzzed interminably and all was bathed in warm sunlight. We left feeling very quiet and serious – and then we were at our next claimant’s house. He was a different proposition: a bachelor, he spoke excellent English and produced all sorts of written evidence to support his claim and had in fact worked up quite a ‘case’ in a very businesslike manner. His small study was a typical bachelor’s room, full of photographs, books, maps and papers of all sorts, with odd trinkets here and there, ashtrays, pipes, fly-whisks and a cup that had not long since contained coffee. He also had a good orchard at the back of his house. We left him after a satisfactory and friendly discussion and set off back to the village, two or three miles away.
By this time the sun was setting and we drove in past the bomb-gashed hospital which had held 600 officer prisoners of war, whose escape had evoked so much heroism and suffering for the people of Fontanellato and the surrounding country. When the Armistice took place, the prisoners knew the great chance of escape had come and that their elaborately framed plans might at last bear fruit. The senior British officer (SBO – now our CO), had approached the Italian commandant and asked for his co-operation, in view of the changed political and military position of Italy and Marshal Badoglio’s command that all Allied prisoners should be freed. The German High Command had on the other hand ordered that all prisoners should be handed over to them for transportation to the Reich. After much thought the commandant agreed to allow the British to escape, saying he would give them prior warning of the Germans’ approach by ringing the prison bell. He promised to give twenty-four hours’ warning, but in practice this was presumably impossible; in any case only one hour’s notice was given. But one minute after the alarm had sounded, the parade ground was filled by men drawn up in the marching order of a German battalion and after one minute more the last man filed out, with the SBO bringing up the rear. The formation of a German battalion was chosen in the hope of deceiving air reconnaissance or possibly even motorcycle patrols. The ruse was successful; though some of the 600 were picked up later by the Germans on account of their uniforms (for it had been impossible to provide civilian clothes for all) or while foraging, for food was scarce, the majority got away altogether, and not one was betrayed by the inhabitants of the village of Fontanellato, who all helped and contributed food and clothing. Altogether about 300 men were fitted out in some sort of civilian garments. When all had dispersed, in companies, which would later split up, the SBO and two companions returned to the village, where the Germans were now installed and angrily engaged in ransacking the camp and selling off any stores they found there to the villages. The three Englishmen hid in the loft of Signor Bigi’s hotel, in the hay and dust behind the wine jars. The hotel was searched thoroughly, but the fugitives were mercifully not discovered, perhaps due to their valiant struggle to stop themselves from sneezing in the cloud of dust.
Many stories of gallantry, some humorous, some pathetic and some tragic, could be told in consequence of that mass escape. There was the English captain who, while the Germans were combing the countryside in their anxiety to catch up with their quarry, was found reading Shakespeare aloud in a field, with practically no clothes on and his shaving kit neatly laid out beside him, complete with British Army holdall. There were the elderly Italian peasants who complained of the bad tobacco smoked by the English, sold to them by the Germans after they had taken over the camp, but which on examination was found to be tea! And there was the businessman from Milan, who owned a big house in the village where several prisoners were temporarily concealed. The Germans put him up against a wall and prepared to shoot him in full view of his whole family, whereupon he just roared with laughter, which so astonished the enemy that they let him go. But others were not so fortunate. Some of the men of the village were later deported and lost their lives. The commandant of the prison ca
mp was arrested and later sent to Buchenwald, where he was so badly beaten up that he died a year or so after his return to Milan when the war was over. His widow was paid a considerable sum by the commission in recognition of her husband’s very signal service to the Allies and the personal sacrifice he had made. He was given a military funeral, with a guard of honour and at which General Heidemann, then commanding Milan Garrison and also representing the Supreme Allied Commander, was present. This had actually taken place in January 1946, some months before our visit.
Such was the set-up of Fontanellato, where almost all members of the village community had taken part in the dramatic incident of the escape, even if they had only given old clothes or a drink of water. The nuns of the convent adjoining the hospital prison had done the prisoners’ laundry and mended their linen; and after the escape they had hidden some of them in the precincts of the convent itself. Later the convent was bombed from the air and one of the sisters was killed. Some damage was done to the building and it was hard to find the money for repairs; the Vatican had to supply funds for so many ruined and damaged churches, monasteries and other shattered church properties that had suffered during the fighting or from Allied and later German bombing. Some of the worst damage inflicted during air raids in Italian towns was after the Armistice, when Italian troops were actually engaged on the side of the Allies, but the stiffened German resistance made it necessary to increase aerial warfare north of the line.
That evening, after our evening meal, various people summoned by the efficient Signor Bigi, who was a tower of strength to us, came to call on Judy and me at the Locale Grande. We offered them a glass of wine and Signor Bigi soon offered us a bottle on the house. The party seemed to swell, and once the business was over became very cheerful. We had been told to obtain and verify certain information regarding claims, and that was not too difficult. One of our visitors was the local doctor, who had lost his car because he had been transporting prisoners to and fro after the escape; the commission was later able to provide him with a PU for his work. His son had been sent to a concentration camp but had fortunately returned, though much broken in health. But cares seemed to be cast aside for a while, and there was much cheerful conversation and eager exchanging of reminiscences. At about ten o’clock we all went off for a walk in the fresh night air. We went past the convent and the famous campo next door, and along the spacious avenue beyond. Everyone was in good spirits and loath to break up the party, but Judy and I were tired with concentrating on understanding the ceaseless flow of conversation, carried on by several people and often simultaneously, and so we pleaded duty the next day and bade friendly goodnights all round, before retiring to our small, clean bedrooms for a sound sleep.
Next morning we called on the nuns, who were very welcoming. After knocking at a small postern door inside a covered corridor, a grill opened, and first one sister appeared, and afterwards the Mother Superior herself, surrounded by her flock who fluttered round her in their grey robes, murmuring softly to each other, for all the world like a covey of gentle doves. We took particulars of their claim and were told all about the damage and the poor sister who was lost, and also about many other matters not directly bearing on the purpose of our visit.
One other visit remained to be paid that morning, at another farm in the country, where we partook of cakes made of a kind of coarse oatmeal and drank some rather immature wine, while the farmer’s wife chatted on cheerfully and philosophically about her family’s troubles. The Italians certainly are philosophical; it seems to be inborn and unconscious in them, but it helps them to put up with things that other people would make far more fuss about.
After a very pleasant lunch, when we were visited at table and acquired some experience in receiving a meal without embarrassment (a necessary quality in Italy), we packed up and then at about 3 p.m. walked down to the castle and crossed the historic drawbridge. We were going to call on the ‘Grand Old Man’ of Fontanellato, the Conti Sanvitale, a great-grandson of the Empress Marie Louise, for he had also played his part at the liberation of the ‘Six Hundred’. We tugged an iron bell-pull, and after a short wait the wooden gate was opened by an elderly retainer, who ushered us into a mediaeval courtyard with latticed windows in the thick stone walls of the castle, and up an external stone stairway, into a great hall with armorial bearings on the walls and numerous ancestral portraits. I especially remember the Louis XV furniture and a magnificent polished walnut table of immense proportions – it must have been nearly 12ft across. After a few moments the count came out from an inner room, old and rather frail in appearance, with thin, sensitive aristocratic-looking fingers. He was charming and courteous to us and after we had respectfully discharged our mission, he saw us to the door and bade us a kind farewell. We might have been in the Middle Ages inside that castle, with the coats of arms, the old-world courtyard, the battlements and turrets, the lantern gate and the faithful retainer (who on a later visit, when I visited the count with my CO for the presentation of his certificate of thanks, was wearing a striped livery). With a last breath drawn in that mediaeval atmosphere, we heard the iron-studded gate close behind us as we passed under the portcullis and crossed the drawbridge over the moat.
Back we went to our friendly ‘Figaro’, and before long Major Girling arrived to collect us. We waved goodbye to the Bigis from the open car front and had soon left the village of Fontanellato, that haven of calm and tranquillity in an atmosphere of utter detachment from the world. Before long we had also left behind us the dyke-bound lanes, and were back on the busy Bologna–Milan highway, away from the fresh green lanes and back to civilisation.
Another investigation I made, this time on my own, was a small trip up to Luino, on Lake Maggiore. We left one afternoon at about four o’clock, and I had to visit the office of the local clerk of the County Council (or his equivalent) and collect some data, and also call on a private person living in that area. I managed to get through both jobs without too much difficulty and was able to admire the magnificent scenery of the lake, the vivid greenness of the pastures and the golden stooks of corn, for it was harvest time in northern Italy. The fresh air of the lake country was like a cool drink after the hot summer dustiness of Milan – and Via Seprio was very dusty. We continued to receive a regular number of calls from claimants, some new and others re-stating their cases or enquiring when their claims would be settled. Thus, with occasional trips away from Milan and the routine work in the office, the summer was slipping quickly by, but the work did not seem to slacken.
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Cavalcade
D uring August the CO had to go over to Verona and on to Venice to see the Area Commander about the petrol situation for the Verona Section, which was as usual in imminent danger of curtailment, if not cancellation. We were to carry straight on to Rome and so spent one day in Venice, staying in the transit hotel, the Albergo Danieli, a luxury place in normal times. It was built in pseudo-Gothic style, most of it nineteenth-century, but some earlier, and had a magnificent red brick exterior and interior courtyard, which had been roofed over to make a lofty lounge and ballroom. The Danieli commands a magnificent view over the lagoon towards the island of San Giorgio and also down the Grand Canal; the Bridge of Sighs, the Doge’s Palace and the Piazza and Cathedral of San Marco are all within two or three minutes’ walk. It was presumably these many amenities, and the still considerable comfort of the hotel, despite Army rations and other inconveniences, that caused it quickly to be earmarked after the capture of Venice for the use of Allied, mainly British, officers. In Florence, the Americans had the Excelsior, a comparable luxurious Albergo.
On this occasion Zimmy was staying at the Danieli, having a last fling for a day or two in Venice, before proceeding to Villach to take the train home on release, and that evening he dined at the CO’s table. Afterwards, he prevailed upon me to go out in a gondola with him to see Venice by moonlight. It was very delightful, and now and then haunting strains of music wafted across the water to us
– everywhere there were lights twinkling and reflecting in the rippling canals and the air blew in from the sea freshly, tinged with salt. Zimmy insisted on reciting passages from Hiawatha to me, though why he chose that particular poem, I never knew. But try as I would, I could not keep awake for any length of time, and feared that in the end he was rather hurt, for I went to sleep three times during his recitations, overcome with the fatigue of motoring in the heat most of the day and lulled by the rocking of the gondola.
Next day we were destined for the Area HQ on the Adriatic coast, at Riccione, near Rimini. It was my first visit to this part, and I noticed that the scenery was different from any other hitherto visited. The country was generally flat and there were narrow lanes, dykes and an irrigation system rather like that at Fontanellato, but here the earth was much less fertile, the trees were mainly pines, and underfoot it was often sandy and stony. Riccione itself had been badly damaged, but was beginning to pick up a little. The HQ was stationed in various requisitioned villas, most of them in large gardens where there were few flowers, but masses of azalea and rhododendron bushes, now mostly over for the season. The main road was lined with pink and white oleanders for many miles, and their rather exotic perfume hung about in the air, mingling strangely with the fumes of oil and petrol; the bright-pink oleander flowers showed up vividly against the blue sky and dusty road.
The transit hotel, the Albergo Vienna, was a simple, sparsely furnished building, but spotlessly clean and quite comfortable, on the edge of a delightfully sandy beach, where the bathing must have been magnificent. The sea was brilliantly blue, aquamarine, and many military wives and children were disporting themselves in the water or sunbathing on the hot sand.
My Italian Adventures Page 37