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Recordiad sain / Audio recording: Neda Renzi
Oral history recording with Neda Renzi. Recorded as part of the Italian Memories in Wales project (2008-10), delivered by ACLI-ENAIP and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
00.00 Neda gives examples of slang in Tuscany. The school Neda went to was very strict. She describes the school system: primary school from six to eleven years. In Neda’s village there was only a primary school so Neda went to live with her aunt in Florence to go to secondary school. Teachers were very respected. Neda recalls one teacher who was very good, they would be taught geography, history, poetry and art at primary school. Discipline was reinforced by the cane.
05.07 Neda was very lucky as she had a good basic education. School was obligatory up to a certain point: those whose parents were farmers would help on the farm instead. For that reason many Italians were illiterate. Children from surrounding villages travelled to the school and church, some walking for an hour to get there. Secondary school was different in the fact that they would have different teachers for different lessons. Neda never got used to living in Florence, she doesn’t have fond memories of that time, her aunt was strict and it was difficult leaving the countryside. Neda’s family followed her to Florence as her father was employed by the Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank. They would return to Castelfranco di Sopra for the holidays.
11.16 Things changed immensely when the war started; rations were put in place and there was a lot of bombing. The German army knew that Florence was a centre for art so it wasn’t bombed as much as other cities. Neda had finished school at that time and was employed in the same bank as her father. He worked at the counter and she worked in the office. When the men in Florence were called up many women worked in the bank, they were called emergenti. Neda’s mother still worked as a housewife and her sisters were still at school. Neda’s most vivid memory of the war was fear of bombing and having to get up in the middle of the night on hearing the sirens. Neda’s family lived just outside the city and would go into the fields during raids. She remembers those times as the most difficult, though as youngsters they didn’t think too much about the war but got on with things.
16.00 In Florence, during the bombing people would go into basements, they didn’t have shelters. Neda wasn’t afraid as such of the bombing, because she had very little experience of that where they lived. The family lived near the air base, which they always expected to be bombed but never was. She was more scared waking up in the middle of the night and having to go outside in the cold. War time was difficult, they would take apart old clothes to make new clothes, everything was recycled. They were fortunate with food as they had land which the poderi, farmers worked on. The ration inspectors would come to measure out their ration and take what was left. They would often hide grain so it wouldn’t be taken. They had animals to live off, so they didn’t suffer from hunger, though at the time to best present you could give somebody if you went to their house was a piece of bread. These friends would have been living in the city where it was also difficult to obtain food. Neda’s family did have food but not very much of it, her father had lost a lot of weight after the war.
21.07 There were fascist soldiers where she lived, everyone was fascist at the time. When Mussolini fell immediately everyone became antifascist. People could only get a job if they had the fascist tessera or card, children were brought up on stories about fascism and Mussolini. Neda goes on to describe the various names that were given to fascist children of different ages: Ballila were young boys, giovani italiane for girls, piccole italiane for younger girls. Giovani italiane would wear uniforms; black skirts, white shirt with black overcoat and black beret. Piccole italiane would wear a black skirt, blouse and tie. Boys were called figli della lupa (children of the wolf) as very young boys, they then became balilla, then avanguardisti. Girls were piccole italiane, then giovani italiane. She recalls going marching and carrying out gym displays in the football stadium. They would be put in a formation where some would close their black overcoats and others would open them to show the white shirts, the white shirts in the formation would spell out Viva il duce (Long Live Mussolini).
26.37 Neda says that Mussolini did a lot of good things for Italy. Many people suffered from malaria in areas just south of Rome. Mussolini put land reclamation and anti-malaria projects in place in the Pontine marshes: they drained the land, built canals and towns, gave land and cattle to farmers so that they could work the land there. However subsequently Mussolini became ‘big headed’ which was his downfall. ‘He thought he was Caesar’ Neda says. In school they were taught that Mussolini was the saviour of Italy. Her parents knew better but as children they were brought up in school with fascism. Before the fall of Mussolini no one would rebel against fascism, if they did it was kept very underground. After the fall of Mussolini the partisan groups started to actively fight against fascism.
30.30 Rebels against fascism would be arrested or exiled to islands or towns where they kept antifascists. Neda talks of a book which she later recognises as Primo Levi’s If this is a man, she believes that Primo Levi was sent to one of these camps. After the fall of Mussolini, German soldiers came to where they lived. Neda recalls confrontations between German and Partisan soldiers. If the partisans killed a German soldier, German soldiers might retaliate by killing more civilians. Neda recalls a situation when civilians and a priest were killed by German soldiers. When Neda’s family home just outside Florence was taken over by German soldiers as a headquarters as it was large and near the airport. They came into the house and demanded that Neda’s family leave. Neda had been taught German at school and asked them to let the family have a room of the house in exchange for help interpreting. They accepted and the family were able to stay. Many houses were taken over completely by German Soldiers. When the soldiers left Italians would then enter and take what was left. Neda recalls a house which was stripped of everything, because everyone was poor at the time.
35.20 Neda worked as an interpreter for the German soldiers in return for a room in the house. Neda recalls an incident when an Italian came and told her that the German soldiers had stolen all the grain they had left. She affronted a German Commander who then called the soldier and made them give it back. The family had to show good face to the soldiers, but they were made to peel potatoes and other things for them. The family kept people who had escaped the war in their house unbeknown to the soldiers. They were soldier and two policemen who they claimed were relatives. Neda’s father had a revolver in the house and her mother had hidden it under the floor in a wooden box. Neda recalls that one day they saw a soldier holding a similar wooden box and thought they had found the gun, fortunately they hadn’t. The Germans in the house were Wehrmacht as opposed to SS soldiers. One officer in particular was very understanding and stayed with the family after the Germans retreated to defend them against the SS in case they passed the house. The soldiers didn’t ill treat them, they were four young girls and they never put in any danger. However the soldiers left the family with nothing, they ate only chestnuts for months.