All language subtitles for La Donna Nella Resistenza (Liliana Cavani, 1965).ENG

FRONT PAGE

A News Program

Between 1940 and 1945,

women faced one
of the darkest times.

Sons and husbands at the front
and at home, rations and bombs.

Their resignation was
transformed on September 8, 1943.

Women, by participating
actively in the fight for freedom,

became aware of their
role in a new Italian society.

WOMEN OF THE RESISTANCE

Europe is occupied
by the Germans.

The many women who
participate in the fight for freedom

write their loved ones a
few hours before dying.

“The duty of lessening my
mother's pain will fall to you.

Tell her that I fell so that those
who come after may live free,

as I so wished to do.”

“I died to attest to the fact that
one can passionately love life

while accepting a
necessary death.”

“Dear Son, I can’t write
you everything that I feel.

But once you’re grown up and
can identify with my situation,

then you will understand.”

“Don’t think of me as being any different
from any soldier on the battlefield.

I feel God's will and with
joy I want it to be done.”

“I think it will happen tonight.

I would so have liked
to see the new times.”

“My dear husband, let my
last breath be of thanks to fate,

which allowed me to love you
and live with you for seven years.

I so would have liked
to see you one last time.

But as I am allowed no favors,

I’m too proud for
a useless request.”

Thomas Mann wrote, “All
this would have been in vain.

Their dream and death would
have been useless, wasted.

No, it can’t be.

There has never been an
idea for which men have fought

and suffered with a pure heart,
and for which they've given their life,

which has been destroyed.”

The Resistance was a
European phenomenon.

The word, coined by the French,

described the opposition
fought by Europe against Nazism.

It was both a fight and
a passive resistance,

a popular movement
and a patriotic revolt.

In Italy, the Resistance
was a new risorgimento,

a movement that united and bound,
for the first time in the nation’s history,

men with different political
and social backgrounds.

It united the masses of the
populace with the antifascist parties.

36,000 partisans lost
their lives in the Resistance.

10,000 civilians were
killed in retaliatory acts.

33,000 soldiers died
in concentration camps.

8,000 were deported
for political reasons.

32,000 died fighting
as partisans abroad.

Women participated
in large numbers.

70,000 women joined
the defense groups.

35,000 women fought
alongside the partisans.

Sixteen of them
received gold medals.

Why? What motivated them?

While up until then fascism
had not shown its true colors,

with the introduction
of the racial laws,

and these wars that
seemed so unjust and cruel —

and we’ve mentioned
the one against France —

women felt that they
could not go along

with a dictatorship,
with a government

that forced them
to embrace attitudes

that went against their
deep moral context.

I had some Jewish friends,

so I couldn't understand
this official stance

and I couldn't understand why
I should renounce my friends,

who until then had
been very dear to me.

Later on, I think the worst blow

was dealt to me by my brothers
upon their return from Russia,

when they told me both

what had happened during their
retreat and what the Germans had done,

and what my brothers had seen,
both in Poland and in Russia.

The last blow, certainly,
apart from July 25,

came on September 12 and 13,

when the first German
tanks came into Mondovì.

It was completely
absurd and unjust

for the Germans to take
away our men that way.

And most of all, seeing, near
the train my father was in —

the sealed train that was carrying
the displaced persons to Germany —

a group of Germans and
fascists shooting at us women,

who were there looking
for our loved ones,

our fathers,
brothers, et cetera.

I experienced a huge
sense of rebellion,

and perhaps for the
first time in my life,

I felt something that I don't
think I've ever felt since.

I felt hatred.

They would put in the envelope with
our paychecks a little stub of paper

on which it said that
we had to pay five lira —

I remember it perfectly —

for the membership
card of the Fascist Party.

I wrote on it, “I refuse.”

After two or three days I was
called into the manager’s office

and they said, “You’re going
to be tried by the special court.”

“Why?” “Because you refused to
become a member of the Fascist Party.”

“I refuse because my
brother just died, in the war.

He was 20 years old.

I didn’t ask for the war. You
did, and that’s all there is to it.”

I took part in the Resistance

because I come from a
family of factory workers.

We lived in a state
of abject poverty,

and I went to work in
the factory very early.

Consequently, we rebelled —

and I think this applies to
the other women as well —

against the abuse of power
on the part of our bosses.

We wanted to live in a better
world, with more freedom.

We also wanted more recognition
for other aspects of our humanity.

And we hoped for better pay.

Mostly because I saw the workers
and the peasants in my town,

all the boys in
town taking part,

so I said to myself,
if they’re doing it,

it must mean
that it’s important.

They were fighting, voluntarily,
for something important.

Important for what
would come after.

Because maybe then
something would change for them,

and therefore also for me.

Then on September 8,
when the army fell apart,

I chose this path
because I realized

that these young men in the
mountains needed the help of us women.

They couldn't
manage on their own.

The men who were in the mountains
could not come down into the cities

because they would
have been arrested.

So I decided to
become a courier.

I started going back and
forth to Boves, on my bicycle,

carrying arms, ammunition,
documents, news, drugs, food,

depending on what I
could get my hands on.

The women who worked at
that time were neither fanatics

nor women with a knife in their
hands or mouths, as has been said.

They were regular housewives,

women who had been
suffering for a long time.

Especially at that time.

Their husbands, their sons
and brothers were in danger.

Some were fighting in the
war, some were already dead.

And the women felt called

to save what they
could of their homes.

Even for an educated person...

I felt that it was logical
to take the position

that at some point one must act.

Acting means proving with
facts the validity of one’s ideas.

So naturally, we
each did what we could

within the limits
of our strength.

So I, too, became a conspirator.

In the Resistance, women became
protagonists of a historical moment

right alongside the men.

They accepted the war as
individuals who participated in it

responsibly and in person.

They accepted war
with its rules of violence,

and the war would not
show them any mercy.

4,563 women were arrested,
sentenced, and tortured.

623 women were either
shot or killed in battle.

About 3,000 women
were deported to Germany.

In the mountains, they participated
in every kind of partisan activity.

In the mountains, women discovered
a new strength in themselves.

The circumstances proved to them
that if necessary they could take control.

They could lead in
battle, or lead a campaign.

More than 500 women were given positions
of civilian and military leadership.

We met two of them.
These are their stories.

On the evening of
November 7, 1944, in Bologna,

was the battle of Porta
Lame against the Germans,

which was crucial
for the partisans.

A 17-year-old girl,
Germana Boldrini,

gave the signal
which began the battle.

At that time I separated
from my comrades

and got to Porta Lame six
or seven minutes before them.

The attack started
there, in the square.

And when I got to Porta Lame...

with my automatic weapon
and my hand grenades,

I started to fire.

My comrades followed my
lead and there was a great battle.

There were losses on our
side and on the Germans' side.

Where did you get
this great courage?

Maybe because in my family
there was always that atmosphere,

given that my poor father spent
12 years in exile on the border,

and when he came home he was
tormented almost daily by the fascists.

He suffered all
kinds of indignities.

And since I was
the oldest child,

I guess I built up in my blood
a certain spirit of bravery.

I would have defended
my father to the death,

because he had endured
such a cruel and horrible youth

that I could hardly
stand to hear about it.

And after his awful death —

What happened to your father?

My father was shot.

First they bombed our house
and then they shot him in the ruins.

So what did you do?

I wanted to defend him. I
wanted to avenge his death.

That’s all that I did.

Because I didn’t see him.

I saw him two days
before his death.

I never saw him again, not
even at his funeral. Nothing.

They didn’t give
him a decent funeral.

It was done with
carts and animals.

They didn’t even allow him
to have a carriage or anything.

In 1944, Norma Barbolini was 24.

She had been in the mountains for a while,
with a brigade of partisans led by her brother.

One of the fiercest battles against
the Germans was at Cerré Sologno,

near Modena, during which Norma
became the leader of the brigade.

Because my brother was
wounded, and quite severely,

and we were engaged
in a fierce battle,

where fascists and Germans
were fighting at close quarters —

So at one point we
were almost surrounded,

after they breached
my brother’s position,

so we had to try,
with all our might,

to resist throughout the battle.

And since I couldn’t
see anyone there

in a position to
make real decisions —

it was very chaotic —

I decided to make the decisions
that I deemed necessary,

certain that the partisans
would support me

and do everything
in their power to help.

Consequently, we were able to
win the battle with great success.

- What was your rank?
- I was a captain.

There was a bounty of 400,000
lira on my and my brother’s head.

In prison, they were subjected
to excruciating interrogations.

Just like the men, they were
aware of code books, codes,

the names of the leaders,
the numbers of combatants.

The enemy stopped at
nothing to get them to talk.

Right after September 8,

Adriana Locatelli opened her
home to a group of soldiers.

She was their leader for over
a year in partisan operations

until the Germans captured her

and tried to get her to talk
by every means possible

over the course of
murderous interrogations.

The interrogations
were held in a room

with a bed covered
in metal spikes.

If the woman said
no, as I always did,

they threw her onto that
bed and beat her with clubs.

Then they would take her out

and put her in a room

that even if she were to
scream no one would hear,

because it was padded.

They would take those things

that chimney sweeps
use to clean the chimneys

and they would strip her naked
and then beat her all over her body

with those sorts of weapons
that the chimney sweeps use.

But wait, her arms
and legs were tied up.

All my teeth were knocked out.

They poked my legs
with red-hot needles.

And this went on for
eight days, you know.

But I never talked or admitted
anything, so I could save my comrades.

I had to wash myself in the
nude in front of all those soldiers.

They wouldn't let me drink, but
they would put water in front of me.

They wouldn’t let me eat, but
they would put food in front of me.

Oh, and they ripped my hair
out, if you want to add that as well.

They ripped my hair out

and slammed me against the
wall for I don’t know how long.

Under very bright lights.

That's why the light bothers me a
little. It reminds me of those lights.

Radio CORA was a partisan
radio connected to the Allies.

The group was captured in
Florence and taken to Villa Triste.

Members of the group included
Bocci, Pieraccini, Focacci,

and also a woman,
Gilda La Rocca.

When they took us to Villa
Triste, it was full of repubblichini,

of German and fascist police.

They took us to the second
floor, to a waiting room,

where they made us stand with
our hands up, faces to the wall.

Then they started taking
people away, one by one,

and we heard awful
screams and loud blows.

Some of the ones who were
brought back to the waiting room,

like Mr. Focacci —

He had a broken arm and all
his teeth had been knocked out

and he was just in awful shape.

The same goes
for Professor Bocci,

who, so they could continue torturing
him, in order to get him to talk —

They had beaten him so badly

that in order to give him a
shot to stimulate his heart,

they were forced to
inject it into his shoulder.

There was nowhere
else to insert a needle.

- What about you?
- Yes, they —

They didn’t spare me.

I won’t go into detail because —

It's so painful, even
just to remember it,

that I can’t handle it.

At night, above me there
was a room which I later saw.

It was a torture chamber. It
looked like a doctor's office.

And the nighttime
was just horrifying

because we could
hear blows and screams.

The Germans
screamed like madmen.

People cried out in pain.

At one point I ripped strips off of
my slip to make earplugs for myself,

but it didn’t work.

I even got to the point
of trying to kill myself.

First I jumped out of a window,

so from then on I was
under constant watch.

But even before then, I had
tried, with the strips of my slip,

to hang myself from the heating
pipe, but it broke and my attempt failed.

It's not right for human beings,

especially if they are
honest, intelligent, et cetera —

They can’t be left to the mercy of
crazed, brutish criminals who beat them,

who induce another human being

to think of death as
the greatest good,

as a liberation.

The Florentine partisans decided

to stage an antifascist
mission at the Paszkowski café.

The mission was assigned to
two gappisti, a man and a woman.

We went in and
sat down at a table.

We attached the bomb under
a table, and we turned it on.

But when it came
time to get up —

I don’t know if we
knocked the table or what —

the bomb fell.

So I scooped it up
and put it in my purse.

But the people at the
next table had seen it,

and noticed
something suspicious.

So they said they wanted
to see what was in my purse.

In the purse was the bomb.
The man was able to escape.

Tosca Bucarelli was taken to Villa
Triste, where the interrogations began.

For the interrogations they took
us into a room, where they all came.

They all came in, and each
one had a question to ask.

And depending on the answer,
if it wasn’t the one they wanted,

they would beat us.

At first — the first
night, in fact —

I was beaten by a
captain of the German SS.

But all subsequent interrogations
were conducted by fascists.

Were you afraid?

I felt a sense of rebellion,
more than of fear.

Because in those moments
I think fear just goes away.

I don’t know, there’s
something that gives us

a certain special
kind of courage.

So I think it’s more rebellion
than fear. But there’s fear too.

Because a person, as I said
before, who is without fear is foolish.

I was very afraid.

On January 21, when
the Allies landed at Anzio,

the Roman Resistance
decided it was the right time

to free a few political
prisoners at Regina Coeli.

The success of the mission
depended on Marcella Monaco,

the wife of the prison's doctor.

The plan was very complex.

I had succeeded in securing,
from inside the prison,

a completed form for
the release of a prisoner.

I filled out nine of them.

Pertini, Saragat, Carlo Bracco,

an extremely brave partisan from
Trastevere who was later captured

and brutally tortured in
via Tasso, where he died.

And the old father of the
two Andreoni brothers,

who had been tortured extensively,
even though he was quite elderly.

And others whose
names escape me now.

The forms were delivered to
the chief warden of the prison.

He replied, however, that
a recent law established

that political prisoners could not
be freed directly from the prison,

but were to be taken to police headquarters,
where they would then be released.

This put a wrench in the plan.

At 5:00 p.m. no
solution had been found.

At 5:30 the curfew would begin.

What’s more, the phone lines that connected
Regina Coeli to the outside were out of order.

Only the internal phone
lines were working.

At this point it seemed
that our plan had failed.

Half an hour to figure out a
new plan was just too little time.

mine, those of the other two
men who were working with me,

of the inmates who were
about to be discovered.

I was absolutely desperate.

I had the idea of running to
the PAI barracks in Trastevere,

because my brother, who at that
time was doing his military service,

had been assigned to the PAI.

I knew the lieutenant who
was in charge of the barracks.

When we got there, I told the lieutenant
that I had to speak to my brother,

and that it was incredibly
urgent and very serious.

Apparently he realized that these
were extraordinary circumstances,

and he ran to get my brother,
and left us alone in his office.

This is what I had anticipated.

So one of the two other men,

who, thank goodness, had
a strong southern accent,

made a phone call

on the direct line connecting
Regina Coeli and the barracks.

He pretended to be the official
in charge at police headquarters,

and he ordered the
release of the inmates.

At the other end of the line,
a very surprised warden said,

“All nine of them?”

And he said, “Yes, all nine, and
right away, before the curfew.”

And the other man said,
“All right, it will be done.”

So we ran back to Regina Coeli,

where the warden was clearly
moving ahead as fast as possible.

And two minutes
before the curfew,

from the main doors
of Regina Coeli,

out came Pertini,
Saragat and the others.

And the best part, I think,

was that Pertini and Saragat
spent the night in our apartment

while all of Regina Coeli was
lit up, with all the phones ringing,

because at 9:30 Radio
London had announced

that a female Roman
patriot had freed these men.

So while the SS looked for
them desperately all over Rome,

Pertini and Saragat, 50 yards
away, were enjoying their freedom.

In truth, though, the contribution of the
Italian women was not limited to direct action.

In 1944 women took part in
the great strikes of the North.

What’s more, they
organized them.

They took the place of the men
in asking for bread, clothes, coal —

improved conditions that might
alleviate the harshness of the war.

And they died in
those demonstrations.

The first woman fell
in Forlì, during a strike.

She was the mother
of five children.

In the home they fulfilled
their traditional duties.

They worked, cut, sewed,

made warm clothing,
made up packages with food,

which other women would take
to the partisans in the mountains.

There’s no doubt that we could have
done nothing without the mountain women.

Also because when we
first arrived in the mountains,

when the fascists
started doing propaganda

against the groups
of partisans —

“Bands” they called us,

but not in a good
sense, more like bandits.

And we would knock on the doors
of families, and these women —

We would have
discussions, and after a while

these women were always
willing to share their bread

and sometimes their beds.

Not just sometimes — when we had
wounded fighters they would help us.

So for us the mountain women
were an indispensable support.

In the city they would act as blockades
during the searches, defending their men.

And they saved
thousands of them.

In the country they would warn
the partisans of coming danger.

They made no distinctions between
their own children and those of others.

And they risked the lives of their
children to save those of others.

When they would see the Germans
gathering, and realize it was a search,

they would split up
in various directions

to warn the entire area that
a search might be coming.

So all the men were warned,

and they would repair to
towns much further away.

Some would hide, but it
was not prudent to hide.

And because of these women, who
weren’t acting on any kind of orders —

They would realize that a search
was coming and they would warn,

“You go this way, you go that way,”
so that a very wide area was covered

and the men were saved.

Another case, much more
pitiful, was that of a mother.

They were looking
for her eldest son.

He was supposed to report for his military
service but he had joined the partisans.

So they took her
13-year-old son instead.

He was also very
short for his age.

This mother was
clinging to her son.

The boy was screaming and the
Germans were dragging him away.

On the truck there were
already quite a few civilians.

The women of the town were
so desperate and incensed by this

that they grabbed mother and child, ripping
them from the clutches of the Germans,

and took them away by force
and managed to save them.

And then, the mothers who saw their
own children die right before their eyes,

when they themselves weren’t
dragged into the partisan fighting.

Maria Giraudo saw
her three sons killed

in a retaliatory strike
against the partisans.

They started shooting
outside the house.

My eldest son came out
with his hands in the air

and they shot him
on the threshold.

Then my second son, who was
only wounded and is still alive,

was standing in the doorway,

and the bullet hit his
shoulder and grazed his jaw.

The other one was
there, near the table,

and that’s where they shot him.

That one died that evening.

The middle one survived, and the
other one was killed on the doorstep.

When the fascists came
in, where were you?

I was upstairs, in my bedroom.

- What did you hear?
- I heard some movement.

So I came out of the bedroom,

and I saw a soldier at
the bottom of the stairs,

who aimed his machine
gun at me and told me to hide.

So I hid inside my room.

Then a few moments
later I heard screams.

I heard the shots first,

then I heard my eldest son,
who was yelling, “Mom, Mom!”

Anna Maria Enriques
Agnoletti, a Florentine,

was connected to an
organization that rescued Jews.

She was captured, and
after being brutally beaten,

she was subjected to
relentless interrogations,

day and night, for a week.

In the end the Germans shot
her in the woods in Cercina.

At the same time, but separately,
her mother had also been imprisoned.

I saw her in the dark,
let's say, because a nun —

Sister Gaetana, of
Santa Verdiana prison —

perhaps because she foresaw
what was going to happen,

and risking her own life, brought
her to me in the middle of the night,

to my cell.

I was alone in the cell,
which was very unusual.

But that night I was alone,
so she took advantage of that

and brought me Anna Maria,
who was in isolation on the top floor.

I had never been
allowed to see her.

So we embraced.

A few days later, the
nuns came to tell me

that they had come
to take Anna Maria,

and me too.

So I was to gather
my things quickly

and be prepared to go.

Very soon thereafter
they came back

to tell me that unfortunately
they were only taking Anna Maria.

They did their best not
to frighten me even more.

But they allowed me —

since Anna Maria had to pass through
that corridor to get to the outside —

those nice men allowed me

to leave the door of
my cell open a crack.

So from there I saw my daughter,

accompanied by a nun...

going to her meet her doom.

She held her head
a little to one side,

as she always did...

when she was a little
preoccupied, especially.

But with the air of a woman
who was serene, and prepared.

And after that I
never saw her again.

A few days after the
raid on the Roman ghetto,

toward the end of October 1944,

they started deporting
Jews out of Regina Coeli.

In one of these groups
was a six-year-old girl.

The truck carrying this
little girl was about to leave

and I had very little time.

So I approached
the father and said...

“I'm the wife of
the prison doctor.

I have children. Would you like
to leave your daughter in my care?

She’s in danger.”

This man looked at me, and he
understood what was happening.

And while the truck was moving
away he threw the little girl to me,

over the tailgate of the truck.

The little girl
started screaming.

The women who had gathered round
realized that the SS were suspicious

and they shoved me into the doorway
of a nearby building that I found unlocked

until the trucks had left.

Then I took this
little girl to my house.

She screamed and cried. Clearly,
she didn’t want to be with me.

She couldn’t speak
a word of Italian.

And I couldn't get through
to her that we loved her.

She was too little.

Not even my children with their
toys were able to calm her down.

She cried and
screamed all night long.

Maybe that night I
understood what an awful time,

what a shameful
time we were living in.

The mother of the
girl, a Polish Jew,

had managed to escape from the
Warsaw Ghetto and get to Switzerland.

She tracked her daughter down
with the help of the Red Cross.

Though it was extremely
dangerous, she traveled to Rome

to the home of
the Monaco family.

She had left her daughter in the
prison of Paris, at death’s door,

because she had
enterocolitis, she told me.

She was very thin and emaciated.

When the little girl came into the
room holding my hand, all spruced up —

we had made her a new dress
and put ribbons in her hair —

she didn’t recognize her mother,

but her mother didn’t
even try to approach her.

She went up to my husband,
who was in the room,

and without saying anything, she
dropped to her knees in front of him.

And this is one of the most beautiful
memories I have of that awful time.

Maria Montuoro was captured in Milan
and taken to the Ravensbrück death camp.

First they took
me to San Vittore.

The first night at San Vittore,

I heard the screams of the
interrogation of my brother-in-law.

I realized it was him because I
could hear what they were saying.

He was tortured horribly.

The next morning it was
my turn to be questioned.

When I saw my brother-in-law
I didn’t recognize him at first.

I couldn't understand why they had
brought a poor old beggar before me.

I didn't even think he was a political
prisoner. I couldn't figure it out.

Then his eyes and his silence
revealed to me that it was him.

So I was horrified.

What did they do to you?

That time they simply told me

that if I didn’t talk they
would do the same to me.

But I'd rather not
talk about myself.

She refused to say
more of San Vittore.

In Ravensbrück, Maria Montuoro found a
world in which everything was backwards.

At the camp, the
Nazi men and women,

called Aufseherinnen,
were nominally in charge.

But since they were greatly
outnumbered by the prisoners,

whose numbers
swelled to reach 60,000,

they had created a
hierarchy within the camp.

The people in charge
were prostitutes...

and thieves.

The thieves were
identified by a green triangle.

The prostitutes
had a black triangle.

In the camps, life was particularly
difficult for the Italian women.

To the brutality of
the Nazi organization

was added the diffidence of
the women from other countries,

who, especially at first, thought that all
Italians were responsible for the fascist war.

But the Italian women too

felt the strangeness of encountering
worlds hitheno unknown to them.

For the first time they were living
in an extremely diverse community

where people had a different
way of thinking, different rules,

and different behaviors.

One day, after 12 hours of work,

I ran to the front of the line

of people waiting for soup.

And I got a loud slap
from a French woman...

who then walked me
back to the end of the line.

I didn’t understand the slap
and I started crying with rage.

When, 10 minutes later, the same
French woman brought me a cup of soup —

she herself brought it to me — she
asked, “Do you know why I slapped you?”

And I said, “No. You slapped
me because I'm Italian.”

So she gave me one of the first
great lessons I learned in the camp.

She said, “No, I slapped
you because in the camp

you can do whatever you
want against the Germans,

but you can’t do anything
to harm your comrades.

If you’re on fatigue duty, you have to do it,
otherwise it will fall on one of your comrades,

who is in just as bad shape as
you are and has your same needs.

If you want to sabotage
the factory, go ahead.

In fact, do all the damage you can,
against the Nazis. This is your duty.

But never harm your
friends or comrades.”

I learned my lesson and from that
moment on I was accepted, at least.

I saw some cases of
truly extraordinary heroism.

There were these
biblical scholars —

They were German
women, scholars of the Bible,

who had formed a religious sect,

long before Nazism,

which during the time of
Nazism behaved very positively.

For instance, they were against the
war and refused to collaborate with them.

So they ended up
in the death camps.

There were four of them

who even refused to be counted in the
roll call, calling it an abuse of power.

I saw them carried
on a palanquin...

and they set some
dogs upon them.

The women let the dogs
bite them and didn’t move.

Then the guards took them by
the shoulders and threw them down,

and they fell, headfirst,
like empty sacks.

One wonders, for those
who survived the camps,

did these 20 years really pass?

Or do they remember them as
if they had happened yesterday?

How does it feel to be hungry?

Psychologically,
it's mortifying.

Those who are hungry for a long time
end up feeling guilty, for some reason.

It's awful to be hungry,
hungry, unbearably hungry.

We were hungry for a year.

In the end it makes
you nauseous.

The rations become
smaller and smaller.

Every day you get a little less.

During the last month we
ate half a liter of soup a day,

made with dried beans.

At some point you
lose your strength.

The stomach cramps
go away, but you feel —

You slowly lose all your
strength and the courage to react.

So you start
calculating the calories.

You don’t move your hand so
as not to waste those calories.

You don’t talk, to
save those calories.

For instance, we women dreamed

of coming home and
becoming cooks. Of cooking.

Which is not what we
ended up doing, of course.

Were you afraid you would die?

Yes, terribly afraid.

But I never thought of death
as something that could happen.

I always had a will to live,
and I think it's what saved me.

The desire to live.

What effect does suffering
have? Your own and that of others?

It has an effect...

that can leave a mark
for the rest of your life.

Because if at some point
you reach your own limit,

you disappoint yourself.

- What do you mean?
- What I mean is...

when you discover that
human ferocity has no limits,

you also discover that unfortunately
your courage does have a limit.

As does your ability
to withstand suffering.

And since you hope
desperately to go home again,

you have to fortify yourself
against your own feelings.

So you have to give up
feeling sorry for yourself.

You have to be able to
laugh at your own suffering.

Potentially this is good, but when
it's extended to the suffering of others,

this courage becomes cynicism.

Strength becomes insensitivity.

When you realize this...

you get a feeling of
capitulation, of defeat.

To the point that
when you do get back

you ask yourself
if it was worth it,

to resist at this cost.

At the cost of your
own personality.

If it might not
have been better...

to suffer with
all our sensitivity

the harm that was done
to us and around us.

Many, many, many women
died like this, of starvation.

They died without a
name, without a personality.

Sometimes without a physical
ailment. They were just found, like that.

You’d wake up in the morning
and you’d be lying next to a corpse.

Another day, at work,
you’d see a fellow inmate fall.

You’d try to raise her
up, and she was dead.

When we came back
from the death camp,

we were out of
step with the times.

We remembered the
suffering and the pain —

and this makes sense, of course
— of a world that wanted to forget.

We were deluded
about the future.

We thought we would find a world

that had learned a profound
lesson from this great trial.

We ourselves began to
doubt what had happened.

We would wonder whether it was
true or false, or if it was all a dream.

Or if we had imagined it, even though
our bodies bore the signs of the violence.

They bore the signs
of the death camp.

But we felt like we were living in
a world that was no longer ours.

They came out of the concentration
camps and the partisan fighting

and from their clandestine
lives as changed women.

Men are lavish in their
praise of the Italian women.

Leo Valiani, one of the
leaders of the partisans,

writes, “We always sent
the women in our stead,

with the pretext that as
women they were risking less.

In reality it was because we thought they
were more capable and braver than we were.”

“Women,” wrote
Alessandro Galante Garrone,

“have proven in the Resistance
that they are equal to the men

in terms of strength of spirit, bravery
and a considered sense of responsibility.”

At the end of 1945, the echoes
of the partisan war were dying out.

Political competition
was beginning.

“Women,” a politician writes,

“have identified or fulfilled, in the
Resistance, their feminine tasks

and have formed
groups or movements,

concerned with their role
in the society of the future.

They have never locked
themselves in a position,

but have instead understood and declared
that their problems of emancipation

are intertwined with all the other problems
of freedom, justice and human redemption.”

The way in which women
took part in the Resistance

was intelligent and aware.

And even after the Resistance,

they continued to defend themselves
and fight for those same goals.

And this still goes on.

Some of those women
became political.

They accepted their
place in the parties

and in parliament, in the women's
organizations, in the unions,

in the universities and
cultural associations.

That fight had begun
unselfconsciously for some,

for others more
deliberately in 1943.

Yet other women
returned to their jobs

in the home, in the factories,

in the glass skyscrapers of
the large modern organizations.

What did the partisan
experience mean to you?

More than anything there
is one very important thing,

which is the emergence of a personality
that I certainly didn’t have before.

And of certain rights —

The awareness of certain rights

that today no one even
questions anymore.

Did the partisan fight
clash with femininity?

It did not clash with
femininity. Absolutely not.

Femininity was
not lost in the fight.

I don’t think so,
absolutely not.

The fact of being women allowed
us to have a certain intuition,

and in certain situations

we could be more
useful than the men.

If I think of the experiences
as seen from the outside

of some of my female friends,
who were partisans like me,

I don’t think that
because they were women

there were things they shouldn't
do, and that only men could do.

Secondly,

and this is perhaps more unusual
in the case of Italian women,

the feeling of participating in historic
events, experienced from the inside.

This, in particular,
seems remarkable to me.

And this heritage is what we should have
passed down to the younger generations,

and perhaps we haven’t done it
as intensely as we should have.

In women there was always,
from the very beginning...

the distinct feeling that the battle
that was being fought at that time

should not be limited to this,
let’s call it, negative aspect

of expelling the enemy
and the oppressor.

The women who took part in the
Resistance, from the very beginning,

wanted a different world.

I finally became convinced
that all men are equal

and are meant to live in
the same spirit of freedom,

and not the absurd propaganda

that was being shoved
down our throats in school.

Let’s not forget that I was born
in 1925, I was arrested in 1943,

I suffered through all of fascism,
and with it all its propaganda,

with some very wrong ideas
on the meaning of freedom.

I finally understood that what
I had done was not useless.

I learned the value of life and
the value of peace. Absolutely.

I learned how precious life is,

to appreciate just being alive.

And the unquenchable
thirst for peace.

I was bedridden and very ill
on the day of the Liberation.

And my men came to ask me

which person they should punish.

Not out of revenge,
but as a lesson.

I was absolutely against
anyone being killed.

But we must remember them,
so it doesn’t happen again.

On the stone of the
memorial monument

for the Italian women
deported to Ravensbrück,

I asked for a motto to be engraved:
“Men, I loved you, remain vigilant.”

Ours is a desire
for freedom and love

that makes us go back to these topics,
because we realize that Nazism isn’t dead,

that racism still exists, and
that there are still active cells.

There are still men who are not
free, so we can’t forget what has been

because we would be making the
same mistake we made back then.

By the same token we can’t
hate all Germans indiscriminately.

That would be reverse
racism, and this too is wrong.

We must simply
remember and realize

that the phenomenon
of the death camps,

the phenomenon of deportation
are things that happened,

but they must
never happen again.