[…]The idea that motivated us at that time was a purely patriotic one; that is, the sense of national humiliation which others felt in the opposite way, which led them to make the opposite choice. But we felt this when we saw the Italian Army fall apart, when we saw the occupation of the German Army. It made it necessary for us to take up a position of rebellion against this occupation […].

So that’s how I first approached the Resistance. Then, when I started taking part in the National Liberation Committee meetings which were being held in Modena and then even more so later on, when I was in the middle of the mountains with a Partisan group, I started to realise that the problem wasn’t just about getting rid of the Germans, but about fighting Nazism and Fascism – this meant giving a strong political sense to the struggle […].

Straight after the war, there was a split among the forces of the Resistance which, however, didn’t stop there from being a strong spirit of collaboration with the Constituent Assembly which gave life to the Constitution […].

Because I believe that the Resistance wasn’t just about those who had weapons in their hands, it was also about all those poor people who helped us survive in the mountains and gave us food to eat to their great risk, which they paid for, like in Montefiorino, Palagano… actually, I’m not sure about Palagano, but Polinago, Prignano, and they were made an example of, not to mention the people who were killed. So the Resistance was something more complex in which a great number of other forces took part, other groups apart from the Partisans – just think of all the work that was done to try and rescue the Jews, that was a form of Resistance too. So this unilateral celebration of the Resistance, this attempt to monopolise it provoked a reaction – this was the worst thing – it provoked a reaction in the anti-Communists and we were among the anti-Communists from ’47 or ’48 onwards. But obviously the anti-Communism of those of us who had taken part in the Resistance was different, but this monopoly on the heritage of the Resistance by the Communists meant that whoever wasn’t a Communist was against the Resistance, against in the sense that all the skeletons got brought out of the cupboard, all the negative aspects of the armed struggle on our territory […].