by Iris Origo
MARCH 31ST
The partisans are now guarding all the roads which lead to this part of the world. The Carabinieri got as far as Casalvento and then turned back, having been warned. Most of them, indeed, are on excellent terms with the partisans, who only fire upon the Fascist militiamen. But now it appears that the Republican Government is proposing to order the Carabinieri to wear the same uniform as the militiamen—and if this is carried out, most of the Carabinieri will desert and join the partisans.
APRIL 3RD
This morning a party of armed partisans came into our little school, took down the portrait of Mussolini (which, by law, the teachers are obliged to have there) and then, going up to the teacher’s house, searched it for arms and ammunition. Since they did not come to our house, nor into the farm or the clinic, it is clear that the intention was merely to frighten the teacher, the only ‘republican’ on the place. Subsequently they pinned up the Duce’s picture on a wall and shot at it. A childish performance—but one that has succeeded in frightening the teacher.
APRIL 4TH
To Siena for the day. Hear that the Carabinieri of both Campiglia and Castiglione d’Orcia have been disarmed by the partisans, and that a militiaman on duty with the Carabinieri was ordered to dig his own grave. When the wretched man had done so the partisans told him that this time they would only put his hat in the grave, but that next time he ventured out he would follow it. He is now in bed, with a high temperature.
Not far away another large farm was broken into by a band, who removed one hundred and fifty thousand lire as well as twelve pairs of sheets and some food. More and more (as in this case) the partisans are resorting to looting—a fact which is bitterly deplored both by the genuine patriots among them, and by the timid, but perfectly honest, peasant boys who have joined them merely to avoid their army service.
APRIL 5TH
A woman, in a great state of dismay, comes running from Pianoia to warn us that lorries containing eight hundred Fascists (more likely eighty) from Siena have gone to attack the partisans at Monticchiello, about five miles away, and may come on here.
Spend the morning in expectation, but no one turns up but a charming, gentle and footsore South African prisoner—in need of some food, some socks and a toothbrush. As it does not seem very safe for him to linger near the house today I take these things up to him in the woods, and sit talking to him for some time, listening to the firing from Monticchiello, and discussing what he shall do next. He tells us that at one time he joined one of the partisan bands himself but left when he discovered that they were going in for robbery. While I was talking to him, the firing appeared to be getting nearer—so he puts his boots on again, and sets off in the opposite direction. [4] We then hear that the Fascists, who are now said to be about three hundred, surrounded a neighbour’s house early in the morning, and searched it for prisoners or partisans—and that now a ‘battle’ is in progress round Monticchiello. The sporadic firing goes on until sundown.
APRIL 6TH
Poor Corrado—the boy at the Sassaia who came home with pneumonia after a few weeks in the woods as a partisan—has died, and five other people in the same house are seriously ill. It appears to be a form of Spanish ‘flu’, ending in pneumonia, and there are about eighty cases of it on the place. Tonight we have been to the boy’s funeral, a tragic business, with his mother keening over the grave. As we waited at Palazzolo for the funeral procession to come walking up the country road, a party of about twenty partisans, with pistols stuck in their belts and guns over shoulders, looking for all the world like brigands in a melodrama, suddenly appeared over the crest of the hill—then, on seeing the funeral procession approaching, settled down to wait under the pines. Later on, when we had gone home, they came down and laid some flowers on their comrade’s grave.
APRIL 10TH
Hear further details of the ‘battle of Monticchiello’. It appears to have been in the best medieval tradition—the partisans having taken up their position behind the old walls of the little city, the Fascists attacking. There were about two hundred and fifty Fascists, and a hundred and twenty partisans. The local population took an active part, the younger women helping the partisans with the loading, the old ones bringing in coppie d’ova (couples of eggs) to refresh the combatants. The partisans’ popularity was no doubt partly due to the fact that on the preceding day—having stopped a lorry of the government food supplies laden with wheat—they had proceeded to distribute the wheat, in the manner of Robin Hood, to the population. The Fascists, on the other hand, arrived at a small farm without any rations, and commandeered food for all their men. After eleven hours’ fighting, when the Fascists were already disheartened, the partisans made a sally down the hill—the women on the ramparts shouting, forza, ragazzi! [5]—and the Fascists ignominiously turned tail and fled, leaving some of their arms behind them. Then they climbed into their lorries and drove back to Siena—and the partisans, in their turn, made good their retreat during the night on Monte Amiata. Only two of them were killed—one during the fighting, and one wretched peasant boy, who, having gone home with toothache, was caught by the Fascists in the very act of trying to get rid of his hand-grenade in a field, and was shot on the spot. The Fascist losses it is impossible to estimate, since they took their dead and wounded away with them.
On the next morning—Good Friday—the population of Monticchiello was awakened by a battering at their doors: German troops from Chianciano (summoned by telephone by the retreating Fascists) entered the town, turned all the population out of doors, and searched every house—without finding a single rebel or a single gun. On the Saturday a further party of about thirty Fascists, together with five lorry-loads of Germans, attempted a mopping-up in the valley, but only succeeded in killing one blameless old peasant whose cart had been requisitioned by the partisans.
APRIL 11TH
Three old friends arrive: Bert, the cook of the POWs at the Castelluccio, with two of his companions—the purpose of their call being to get their boots resoled! They have been asked to supper on Easter Day, they tell us, in one of our farms—and then will come back here to pick up their boots, and will move farther south again. I provide them with tennis shoes of Antonio’s to wear meanwhile, and take their boots down to our farm cobbler, who can hardly fail to recognise the British Army boots, but asks no questions and sets to work. For a short time, they say, they joined one of the bands on Monte Amiata (about four thousand strong, under the command of an officer in the Indian Army), but a Fascist punitive expedition in that district has caused them to move on.
APRIL 12TH
Today I have received a visit from two other Englishmen, whom I found sitting in deck-chairs in my garden! I suggest that we should move up to a more secluded spot in the woods and there we have an agreeable conversation. Both educated men, who have now been prisoners in Italy for nearly three years, they speak of recent events (‘from a worm’s eye view’, as they say themselves) with great moderation and good sense. They are only too well aware of the change in feeling here in the last few months—caused partly by the indiscriminate bombing, but even more by the Allies’ dilatoriness. ‘Do you realise,’ they say, ‘that for the last fifty miles everyone whom we have asked for help has sent us on to you? Hadn’t you better be careful?’ They are, however, unable to suggest what form such carefulness should take—and as we are sitting talking, at the edge of a pine wood over the brow of the hill, I become aware that someone is standing behind us—a ragged, unshaven figure, watching us in silence. I hastily get up, my mind full of the tales of Fascist spies, and go towards him—only to observe, to my intense relief, that he is wearing Antonio’s tennis shoes! He is one of Bert’s friends—and with great relief I take back the news to the other POWs, who have meanwhile moved off into a thicket. ‘What a life you do lead!’—they remark, and we part with mutual expressions of good will.
APRIL 13TH
Take Benedetta up the hill (where there is a good meeting-place for
such encounters, away from the farm and the road) to say good-bye to Bert and his friends, whose boots are now mended. Benedetta says ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ to them. ‘Nice to hear a kiddy speaking English out here,’ says Bert.
Talk to a young partisan at one of our farms. He is much concerned, as are his comrades, with the problem of Larig—who took no part in the Monticchiello fighting, is drinking the wine and selling the foodstuffs entrusted to him, and who they are afraid may give them all away. Moreover, he has seduced a girl of sixteen, the daughter of one of the workmen on the place, and is trying to get her to run away with him.
His former comrades are proposing to take the law into their own hands, and get rid of him.
APRIL 14TH
Drive down to Sassaia with the children to see the mother of Corrado—the boy who died last Thursday. The whole family are in a pitiful state, having all caught the fever, too. Their kindness is really amazing. When Corrado was at his worst, and most of the rest of the family ill, they yet managed to take in another young partisan of the same age—a complete stranger—and nurse him back to health, and when they spoke of it, they said their only regret was that they had not been able to take in two of the British prisoners who stayed with them before. ‘But they’ve promised to come for a visit, after the war.’ At the next farm, Olmaia, I find yet another stray young man in bed with bronchitis. He has run away from a German labour camp near Orvieto. Five of his companions—all from the same camp—are digging the vineyard in return for their lunch and supper, and will proceed tomorrow on their long tramp to their home, Bergamo.
As we are walking down the hill with the children we hear a loud explosion quite near, followed by many smaller ones—and then fourteen small fighters fly over our heads, very low. Remembering all the stories about machine-gunning, I wonder whether to make the children lie down in a ditch—but decide to chance it, and Benedetta looks up and says, ‘How nice and near they are today!’
When we get home we hear that a German munition-dump near Chianciano has been hit—with a good many casualties, mostly among the workmen. We also find three Italian deserters sitting in the courtyard still in uniform. One of them has hurt his ankle and can’t go on. Take him to the clinic to be tied up, and find lodgings for the night for the other two.
APRIL 15TH
A letter from Rome. Life there is increasingly difficult and expensive. No list has been published of the three hundred and twenty hostages shot in reprisal for the bomb which killed thirty-two Germans—and consequently all those whose friends or relations are in prison cannot discover whether they are alive or dead. Arrests continue, on a variety of pretexts, and no one knows on whom the next blow may fall. Bombing is only in the outskirts, but the air-raid warnings are very frequent, and guns can be heard in the distance from the Anzio front. Every day the Romans say, ‘Today something will happen,’ every day drags on, without any change.
APRIL 16TH
In Florence, Prof. Gentile is murdered—shot in his car as he was driving up the via del Salviatino one evening. He was head of the new Accademia, and the intellectual apostle of Fascism—guilty, in many people’s view, of la trahison des clercs, but a sincere and honest man. It is a mean and despicable crime, worthy of those committed on the other side, and an instance of the blind party hatred by which this unhappy country is torn. One is reminded of Dostoevski’s comment on his own country. ‘Mon avis à moi, c’est qu’en notre temps on ne sait plus du tout qui estimer en Russie. Et convenez que c’est une affreuse calamité, pour un pays, de ne plus savoir qui estimer.’
APRIL 17TH
Spend the morning trying to alter the date of birth on the identity card of a young deserter who turned up this morning and firmly requested this service—with the same confidence with which others have asked for a clean shirt or some food. It is much more difficult to do than one would think, even though the type of my machine is fortunately of the same size as that used in his document, the difficulty being to put the new figure precisely in line with the others. And clumsiness is lent to one’s fingers by the thought that the boy’s life may hang on its being done well.
Antonio comes to tell me that the leaders of the local band are going tomorrow night to meet ‘a general’ who has come up from Rome to organise them. They certainly need it.
APRIL 19TH
To Siena today, leaving at six a.m. to avoid the Allied planes. See on the road many burned-up lorries and cars, and arrive in Siena just twenty minutes before the first air-raid. Air-raid warnings continue steadily all through the day until five p.m., and during them the shops are closed, so that it is difficult to get one’s shopping done. We leave at seven p.m., when the obligingly punctual planes are supposed to have left, and get home without incident. Yesterday, however, the little old horse-bus with orange curtains was machine-gunned on that road near Buonconvento, and three people were killed. Our schoolteacher, too, was machine-gunned, driving in a pony-cart on a country road, and only escaped by throwing herself down in a ditch.
APRIL 20TH
F. G. writes that the Maremma is now full of Kalmuks, volunteers from Astrakan, Kirghis, etc., who have joined the German Army to avoid starvation. They are simple, friendly people, who get on very well with the peasants and call the Contessa Boba (who is Russian) ‘Mama’—but they don’t think much of the dry soil of the Maremma, and long for their own rich, black soil.
APRIL 21ST
Today the Jugoslav, Larig, has been ‘liquidated’—to the great relief of us all. He had extracted further sums of money from several people at Abbadia (pretending that he was head of a band) and had taken an apartment at Montepulciano, to which he was about to take one of our farm-girls whom he had seduced, threatening to shoot her parents if they opposed him. There was nothing for it for his former companions but to take the law into their own hands. Early this morning five young men broke into his room, disarmed him, and took him away towards Monte Amiata—from where, presumably, he will not return. This morning our nurse met them on their way: Larig very pale between two armed men, and three others behind.
APRIL 22ND
Bombs were dropped in the valley this morning, shaking the house—aimed at the bridge on the Orcia. Then the bomber formation (thirty-six) flew over our heads, and bombed Chiusi and the railway line. The explosions were loud even up here, and the children were frightened, especially those whose houses had been destroyed in Turin. Benedetta, never having seen any danger, was quite unmoved, and continues to refer to the airmen as bon citti (good boys). A lorry full of evacuees, all women and children, was hit at the Acquaviva crossing—twenty people wounded and eleven killed. Bracci, going down to help, had his car machine-gunned and only just escaped with his life.
The brother of Larig was also caught last night in Chiarentana, and taken off to Monte Amiata—where presumably he will share his brother’s fate.
In the afternoon one of our peasants, living in a farm which has only narrowly escaped bombing, comes up to ask for advice, because le mi’ donne (my womenfolk) are so frightened that they want to leave the farm. We can only say, while sympathising, that there are no absolutely safe places, and that all any of us can do is to stay where we belong.
The Allies’ intention is clearly to stop all German traffic, by air, road or rail. And in this, except at night, they are now being completely successful.
APRIL 23RD
As we are weeding the garden, the gardener comes running up: ‘The partisans are killing a Fascist! He has taken refuge in the clinic with his wife and baby.’ We go down there and find a group of about fifteen partisans, in picturesque garments and very much over-armed, surrounding the clinic, from which they had turned out the patients and children. Antonio goes up to their leader, who chooses to call himself Uragano (Hurricane), and asks what it is all about. Apparently a Fascist (in uniform and belonging to the S.S.) who was on his way back from Rome, had got a lift with his brother, wife and small baby on a German lorry as far as the main road, and had then atte
mpted to walk across our valley to Chianciano, wheeling the pram with their luggage. Just below the clinic, however, three partisans came out of the wood and demanded the Fascist’s pistol. His brother threw himself upon the partisan, and, after a struggle, disarmed him: the three then ran off to call their comrades, who were resting in a farm nearby, while the Fascists, with the woman and baby, took refuge indoors. Other partisans then appeared, surrounded the house, and were exchanging threats with the Fascists out of the window—until Uragano appeared and tried to calm them down. Antonio points out the idiocy of the whole performance, and tries to persuade them to release the man, after disarming him. This most of them are prepared to do, but two or three are sullen. ‘It’s all very fine,’ they say, ‘but they would show us no mercy if they had us in their hands.’ Meanwhile I go indoors, and find the woman in hysterics, and the baby (only one month old) howling while its father was changing its diapers. Take them upstairs, and give them some coffee, while outside an interminable argument goes on. Some of the men want the Fascist’s life, some only his badges, others want to take him as a hostage. One of the rebels says he wants the personal satisfaction of cutting off the badges, and goes indoors. Uragano goes up with him, I follow—and we find the ferocious Fascist rocking his baby in his arms. He docilely removes the badges with his nail-scissors, and the partisan explains that he has joined the patriots in order to avenge his brother, who had been killed by the Fascists. Then, quite amicably, he goes off with the badges, and outside the argument begins again. At last Uragano’s men give way, and the whole party (in our pony-cart, and minus their shoes, which had been taken by the partisans) is allowed to set off for Chianciano.