by Iris Origo
SEPTEMBER 21ST
Better news today. The Fifth Army now holds the road on the Sorrentine peninsula, the Eighth Army has reached the plain of Foggia. The Germans have evacuated Sardinia and are now fighting against Italian and French troops in Corsica.
An unpleasant bit of local news is that a reward of L.1800 has been offered by the Germans for the capture of any British prisoners of war, or information as to their whereabouts. In the province of Livorno (i.e. along the coast, where a large number of prisoners must have made their way in hope of a landing, and where there is already a food shortage) the reward is higher: L.5000 and an increase in rations. The radio also repeats the penalty for sheltering POWs—trial by court-martial.
Walk down to the Englishmen and tell them to warn any compatriots of this reward, and of the danger incurred by the farmers who shelter them. We also warn them that at the road-men’s cottage in the valley there is a family of ardent Fascists who are reported to be on excellent terms with passing German troops, and who might make trouble. [20] ‘It’s the sort of thing one reads about in books,’ says one of the prisoners with gusto, ‘us hiding here and all that.’ We all enjoy this idea very much. But privately I hope that the more dramatic episodes of that sort of book (arrival of brutal German troops, hair-breadth escapes by British prisoners, court-martial of those responsible for sheltering them, etc.) may not come our way.
SEPTEMBER 22ND
Two other German officers appear during Antonio’s absence in Siena, and ask for the keys of the garage: they require, they somewhat unnecessarily explain, a car. I show them ours, but say that it has no tyres—hoping, as I speak, that Angelo will not again stage one of their reappearances. They will see to the tyres, they reply, and will come back tomorrow to fetch the car. I ask for a receipt, remarking with sickly humour that I will frame it with the receipt for the motor-bicycle that has already been taken away from us—whereupon they suddenly click their heels, formally introduce themselves, apologise, and remark: C’est la guerre.Yes, indeed, say I.
SEPTEMBER 24TH
Yesterday we were told the names of the Ministers of the new German-appointed Fascist government, of whom the only familiar names are General Graziani at the Ministry of War and Buffarini-Guidi (one of the most odious figures of the regime) as Minister of Interior—all the others being obscure ‘squadristi’. Mussolini is the self-appointed Foreign Minister.
The nominal existence of this government, to which no one pays any attention, does not prevent the German Command from issuing its own orders—which today include fresh instructions for the mobilisation of Italian recruits for labour camps in Germany, and a description of the penalties inflicted on some young men in northern Italy for sabotage: trial by court-martial and reprisals against their families.
Two of our farmers, whose sons were with their regiment in Pistoia, have now received notes hastily thrown out on to the railway line, saying: ‘We’re being taken off, we don’t know where.’
SEPTEMBER 25TH
A Viennese officer from Chiusi (who has come to take away our car) tells us that General Rommel is now coming south, to take command of the German Army at Naples. A second line of resistance is being prepared by the Germans south of Littoria. Part of the British Fleet has been seen off Livorno, about thirty miles out to sea. (Alas, only by the eye of the imagination.)
Every day it becomes more obvious that the next stage of the war, in which every region of Italy in turn will become a battlefield, is going to take a very long time.
SEPTEMBER 26TH
Today, for the first time, Florence has been bombed—also Pisa, Livorno, Verona and Bologna. In Florence the intention was clearly only to hit the military factories and the marshalling yards, but although the factories at Rifredi were hit, the station at the Campo di Marte was missed completely, while bombs fell on the adjoining streets and squares. There has been much loss of life, as the alarm did not sound until after the first bomb had fallen, and the children’s hospital is among the buildings hit.
V. arrives to beg us to give shelter to his son, who has left his regiment and is in hiding in Rome. Some of his companions are trying to get through to join the Allied forces with papers provided by the Vatican, bearing a forged stamp of the German Command. V.’s account of Rome is grim. Conte Calvi has been arrested and sent to a concentration camp and the ‘Piave’ Division which he commands has been disbanded. The S.S. rule over the city. Seven German soldiers have been killed by the population and now six thousand hostages have been demanded by the Germans. Sealed trucks leave daily for Germany by rail, carrying Italian soldiers to labour camps. There are frequent rumours, as yet without foundation, of Allied landings. The universal cry is: ‘May they come soon!’ But now the weather has broken and the autumn winds may make landings difficult—and, moreover, the Germans have now had time to bring down reinforcements.
New orders issued by General Kesselring award the death penalty for the possession of firearms, for sabotage, or for sheltering or in any way assisting members of enemy forces. The Fascist Government also issues a proclamation awarding the death penalty to those who give help to prisoners of war.
SEPTEMBER 28TH
V. and his fugitive son arrive, with long, cadaverous and unshaven faces. At Chiusi they have met a train from the south packed with terrified boys of sixteen and seventeen, whom the Germans have taken from their homes at Castellamare and are taking up to labour camps in Germany.
Last night the Viennese lieutenant returned, bringing with him his ‘Herr Major’. The latter—a quiet, elderly landowner from Brandenburg—says that it is absolutely necessary for Antonio to report the presence of our POWs to the German O.C. at Siena. He himself, he says, will go with Antonio, ‘to avoid unpleasantness’. So now no choice is left us. The major says firmly that he does not for a moment believe that the O.C. will allow us to keep the prisoners here without a guard. They will either take them away to Germany at once, or else send some men to guard them here—with a view to removing them as soon as the Allies get nearer. ‘After all,’ he says, ‘you’re living in an invaded country. You can hardly expect us to leave enemy troops at freedom in it.’
When at last he has gone to bed, we sit up discussing what to do next. Somehow we must save them, but how?
Early in the morning (with the Germans still in the house) we hurry out to meet Sergeant Knight in the wood and explain the situation to him. We tell him that there is just a chance that Antonio may be able to persuade the Germans to leave the POWs here, but that it is a very slight one. He had better tell the men how matters stand, so that they may always keep a sharp look-out (lulled by a false sense of security, they had got slack) and always take their kit down to the fields with them, so as to be able to get away at short notice. Sergeant Knight hesitates, then shakes his head. If he tells the men ahead, he says, some of them will bolt at once, today—and we shall undoubtedly be held responsible. He will keep the news to himself, at any rate, until Antonio gets back from Siena tonight, and then we can decide together what is to be done. Antonio accordingly goes off to Siena in the German car—and returns with bad news: the O.C. has received orders to recapture all Allied prisoners in the district and take them up to Germany—and he will send a lorry to fetch the men tomorrow morning.
After dark, in pouring rain, we again meet the sergeant and tell him of the orders. But still he firmly refuses, for our sake, to warn his men until the last moment—for fear that they should bolt tonight—‘forgetting’, he says, ‘all the gratitude that we owe you’. We then make plans for tomorrow. We have already sent down extra rations and, rain or shine, the sergeant must see to it that all the men, taking their kit with them, go down to work in the morning—to a field half a mile away from the road and sheltered from it by a hillock, on which the sergeant will be on the look-out. As soon as he sees the German lorry he will signal to the men and they will then have about a quarter of an hour in which to scatter and escape towards the hills. The lie of the land is a
lmost ideal—hillocks and scrub, in which the men can conceal themselves—and unless the Germans are very many or very nippy, it seems unlikely that they will ever get near enough to shoot. When everything is settled, I give the sergeant some small parting gifts—a pocket-torch, our last slab of chocolate, and a map, on which I have marked a suggested route southwards through the mountains, avoiding the coast, which is now full of Germans. We shake hands, ask him to write to us when he gets home—we neither of us say ‘if ’—and as he disappears into the wood I have a lump in my throat. ‘That’s a good chap,’ says Antonio. ‘Good luck to him—to them all.’
SEPTEMBER 29TH
It’s all over—and all has gone well. The Germans were due at ten, and as the time drew nearer, I sat with Antonio on the terrace, waiting to see their lorry appear on the valley road. They were late—a not very pleasant hour of suspense. If some of the men do not get away, I thought, we shall feel that we have betrayed them: if they do, will Antonio not pay the penalty? At last the Germans arrived—in a large lorry, escorted by a motor-bicycle. The men were armed with tommy-guns, but there were only five of them, with an Italian maresciallo. Antonio went out to meet them and warned them that the prisoners always kept a sharp look-out, but they were very confident. And the lorry, with Domenico to show them the way, set off down the hill. Antonio, the fattore and I hurried off to a view-point above the pine wood, and anxiously watched the scene. Sergeant Knight had been as good as his word: the men were all at work, and he was on the look-out. We saw the lorry draw up at the bridge, and then, a minute later, the first little group of men (dark shadows on the pale clay hillocks) running for cover. Then a pause—and then the Germans arrived, in single file—to find only some spades and hoes in an empty field: for Tette, the Italian foreman, had had the fright of his life and had run away too. (As he described it later: ‘Camo disse il sergente … e non c’era più nessuno!’ [21]) The Germans hunted about half-heartedly, went to one or two of the farms—and then, not without some slight dismay, we saw the lorry turn back towards La Foce. But as the Germans came into the house, I saw that they were grinning, ‘Das war Pech!’ they said. ‘If we had known the lie of the land we’d have brought more troops—or saved our petrol.’ And in due course they went back to Siena. [22]
The clay hills (crete senesi) of the Val d’Orcia
Only after their departure did we discover that four of the prisoners, who had omitted to take their kit down to the field, actually went back to their farm to fetch it, and started packing in a leisurely manner. Meanwhile the Germans went to the door of that very house and (while the Englishmen were still lingering upstairs) asked the old farmer’s wife in the yard whether she had seen any Americani. ‘Americani? No, certainly not!’ she replied, in so convincingly blank a tone, that the Germans, without bothering to search the house, went away again. When Antonio asked her about it afterwards, he saw that she did not even realise that her lie had been dangerous. ‘They might have put me in prison? Nonsense—what would they do with an old woman like me? Anyway, they asked for Americani, and we’ve only got Inglesi here!’
So all the prisoners have got away. In every farm there is a deep regret at their going. Everywhere they have become a part of the family. They played with the children, helped the housewife with the chores, shared their rations—and bon citti (good boys) is the general affectionate verdict. On their side, too, there was an equal liking. Perhaps when they get home, to Yorkshire farms and Midland towns, they at least will speak well of the Italians. [23]
SEPTEMBER 30TH
Better news at last. Yesterday the Fifth Army broke through the German lines on the Salerno mountains and entered the plain of Naples; today they are within ten miles of the city. The good news came, alas, just too late to hearten the prisoners before they left.
C. A., arriving from Rome, confirms V.’s grim account of the city. Complete paralysis and confusion reign. In each ministry there are two heads: a commissario appointed by the Germans and a minister appointed by the new Fascist Government—not to mention the recent Ministers of the Badoglio Government who are either in hiding or in prison. But in reality the country is ruled only by German martial law. The Germans, paying no attention whatever to the Fascist Government, issue their own orders—and everyone trembles before them. There has been a certain amount of looting—mostly of empty houses, or of those belonging to prominent ex-officials—and official ‘requisitions’ of all cars, motor-bicycles, etc. Every Jew, rich or poor, has been required to pay a tribute of fifty golden lire—under threat of imprisonment for two hundred of the Jewish community. The Italian police are completely ineffective. A few nights ago a party of armed Fascists broke into one of the Carabiniere barracks, where a Fascist from Milan was imprisoned, demanded his instant liberation, and took him away with them. The only police force that still has some authority is that of the Africa Italiana. The streets are empty. The categories of people who have good reason to be afraid include all ex-officials (Fascist or anti-Fascist), all officers (who have been ordered to report to the German Command), all private soldiers of the classes 1910–25 (who may be sent off to labour-camps), and to these must be added all those merely stricken by blind panic. Thus C. A., who has a large dairy farm at Ostia, says that they are obliged to throw away a large quantity of milk every day, because the Roman lorry-drivers refuse to come and fetch it, while at the same time babies in the town are starving. Of the boys of the Naval Academy in Venice, which had moved to Brioni, half were able to make their way to join the British Fleet, but the other half were caught and are now prisoners in Germany.
Travel by train has now become practically impossible. V. took thirty-eight hours to get from Chiusi to Ferrara—twelve hours of the time being spent waiting in Chiusi, where the only train was packed to overflowing with terrified women and children escaping from Naples to the north—they themselves did not know where. At Livorno the German O.C. has taken fifty hostages, in reprisal for attacks upon German soldiers, and has issued a proclamation announcing that if there is any further trouble, five of them will immediately be shot and the whole population of the suburbs of Livorno will be evacuated without notice.
OCTOBER 1ST
Naples is taken at last and the road is open to Rome. It seems probable, however, that the Germans will fight rearguard actions all the way, and it is said that they have prepared a second line of resistance at Terracina, and another at Nettuno. God knows how long it will be before the Allies get here.
Yet another Italian government, meanwhile, has been constituted by the Allies—consisting of the King, Badoglio, Roatta, Admiral De Courten and Acquarone. An official comment of the BBC speaks of this government as ‘provisional’ and as merely having been set up ‘to co-ordinate the Italian Forces to fight against the common enemy’.
Graziani, after a meeting of all the Italian officers of the district in the Theatre Adriano in Rome, has succeeded in enrolling four thousand officers in the service of the Fascist Republic. (Subsequently we hear that these enlistments were obtained under threat of deportation to Germany.) So now we have the prospect of civil war.
OCTOBER 2ND
C. A., who has come here to fetch his baby, hesitates whether or not to take her back with him to Rome, where it is expected that the Germans, before leaving, will destroy both the aqueducts and the electric power stations. On the other hand, he is afraid of being separated from the child, without news, during the German retreat, if he leaves her here—and in the end they all set off.
We spend the morning in looking for our old oil-lamps, in case all electricity is cut off later on, and Antonio decides to go to Florence to fetch my furs, which are stored there—as in Rome the furriers have been looted and in Florence both Settepassi and Parenti have suffered the confiscation of all their jewellery and silver.
M. R. arrives, by a cross-country train, from her place in the Val di Chiana. Being near the camp at Laterina, they see a constant stream of prisoners passing by. The farmers give them
help and shelter, but one of the neighbouring landowners, a violent Fascist, has performed one of the meanest acts that I have yet heard of. He engaged six men to look for fugitive prisoners in the woods, with orders to offer them food and help, and persuade them to come to the fattoria—where they were promptly handed over to the Germans. Let me add that this is the only case of this kind that I have heard of. Everywhere else the farmers here have been eager to help the prisoners—even at considerable risk to themselves.
OCTOBER 3RD
Benevento is occupied by the Allies—but their progress is slow. Apparently the Germans intend to use delaying tactics all the way up Italy, until they reach their main defence line on the Po. The BBC exhorts its listeners in England to be patient—but this is less easy for those living here, who are still enduring Allied bombings, as well as increasingly severe German and Fascist repressive measures. Today the Podestà of Chianciano came up to see Antonio and told him that the Germans, with the assistance of the ‘Fascistoni’, are now threatening to arrest one member of each family that has a soldier in hiding, and keep them as hostages until the soldier gives himself up. The only hope is that—in this district at least—they will not have enough men to carry out this threat.