Tita Moretti's recollections
We came here to Calco from Milan when the American's were bombing and destroying the houses; there were fires in the town. I was 6 years old, I remember the fires and how we went undergrown when we heard the alarms at night. Our whole family came here during those years, aunts, uncles, cousins.
During the war, it was hard to get food, everything was going to soldiers. We made our own butter from our cow, there was pork, we had fruit trees, and a garden. Difficult to find was butter and milk.
Then arrived the Americans in 1945 the tanks the 27 of April arrived in the town. They were handing out chocolate and caramel candy. Everyone was happy, a liberation from Fascism. I remember they handed out cans of beans that were good.
Before they arrived, we had many problems for the partisans because the Germans were here. Mussolini was the king of Italy, the former king left Rome. The Italian army was without order; some went with Mussolini, some with the partisans to reach freedom from regime of Mussolini. There was fighting from partisans and the republic, fighting from the English against the Germans. The English landed in Sicily and moved north. They pushed the Germans out. It was a period of travail. I was 9 years old. I remember the aircraft with the guns shooting. We were going to school by bike, and we had to dive in the snow, because the planes were arriving and shooting at the station and at German cars. But you didn't know where they were shooting so you had to get down. I was the oldest of the group of kids, I was afraid, but interested in the aircraft flying. In the snow, I looked up at the planes.
Once a bomb fell about 100 meters from us, we heard it in Calco at 8:30 in the morning, we were going to school. I was out looking at the plane, it fell in a field and there was a lot of smoke and noise. I went back in and everyone was under the table, all the glass was broken, and a lamp fell on my dad’s head when he was shaving.
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| Summer 2013 |
