War in Val d'Orcia

by Iris Origo

  MARCH 4TH

  The Italian Republican Government still economically makes use of the old stamps with the King’s head, but has stamped on them an emblem of the Fascio which half obliterates the King’s face.

  The Germans are launching another violent counter-attack (the third) on the Anzio front.

  MARCH 6TH

  Tomorrow is the last day on which the recruits of the 1922–25 classes can join up; then the savage penalties will come into action. Not one of our farmers is going: but on driving yesterday to S. Angelo, on the other side of the valley, we discovered that, on the contrary, all the young men in that district have joined up. This will enable the Fascists to concentrate on the districts where there are most defaulters, and to ‘make an example’ of as many as they please. It is the old story, in this country, of lack of unity. (I am reminded of the state of things in Ireland in my childhood.) The same thing has just happened with the general strike, organised by the Communist, Socialist and Demo-Christian Parties as a protest against the penalties threatened by the Government for the young men who do not join up—and also, in some districts, against the lack of sufficient food for the workmen. The strike, which was intended to include all the workers of the German occupied territory, began on March 1st. According to Radio Roma it included a quarter of a million workers (one hundred and twenty thousand in Milan, thirty thousand in Turin and twelve thousand in Florence); according to the BBC, about five times as many. What is certain is that it was not the universal protest which was intended—and that the numbers of the strikers, in many cities, were small enough to permit the Government to inflict severe punishment on those who were courageous enough to take part.

  MARCH 9TH

  Antonio returns from Florence, where the atmosphere is not agreeable. Arrests continue, and he himself, while sitting quietly in a café, was caught in a German round-up. On showing his papers he was left in peace, but he saw the lorry of the less fortunate captives—both men and women—making its way down via Tornabuoni.

  MARCH 10TH

  The first mild spring day, Rome and Florence are both bombed, the latter severely, for the first time also the station of Orvieto.

  The peasant who is sheltering the three Englishmen comes back again. They are leaving, he says, tonight: and he asks for money to provide them with boots. A Mexican lieutenant (la vedesse che degna persona! [3]),who is now commanding one of the bands on Monte Amiata, came last night to fetch them—and though they are sad to leave and their hosts to see them go, there is no other choice, as this morning some Republican militiamen have come down from Radicofani to search those woods for POWs and deserters. The band to which his guests are going, the farmer says, is already several thousand strong, with both Italian and Allied officers. If this is true, there will be some ‘activity’ in this district before long.

  MARCH 11TH

  The first signs of it have already appeared. Yesterday at dusk the fattore’s boy came to tell his father that two men with muskets were hanging about the wood, just above the clinic. When the fattore went to investigate the men made no bones about their intentions: they were lying in wait for one of the forestry militiamen (who has made himself hated in the district) ‘to bump him off’. The fattore protested that it was hardly tactful to do this at our front door—and after a while the men went off, saying they’d have another shot later on. In the evening we heard that four other armed men had been waiting nearby, and that they all belong to a local band led by a young Jugoslav officer, who has been living all this winter on one of our farms.

  Antonio meets an officer who (having gone over to the Republican Party) has returned from imprisonment in Germany, in the officers’ camp at Przemysl. The conditions there, he said, were very bad, and the scarcity of food such that towards the end of the time he hardly had the strength to stand upright. (A report of the International Red Cross after inspecting these camps says that the food ration is the following: three hundred grs. of bread, to be divided in the three meals; a herb tea for breakfast; two boiled potatoes for lunch; two more for supper. That is all.) As soon, however, as he had agreed to join the Republican Party he was moved to another camp near Berlin, where conditions are entirely different and the food is the same as that given to the German officers. Those prisoners who have not gone over, however, still remain in Poland—and are presumably still starving.

  Antonio also accidentally meets, at a lonely house some way away, a young German sergeant, whom (from the confused story he tells) he suspects of having deserted from Anzio. He is all to pieces, and says that it is hell there.

  MARCH 12TH

  A friend writes from Rome: ‘The third Sunday in Lent: where shall we be before Passion Sunday? During air-raids I say to myself the Ninetieth Psalm: Non timebis a timore nocturno, a sagitta volante in die, ab incurso et demonio meridiano.’

  Hear the broadcast of the Pope’s Benediction of the faithful in Piazza San Pietro—a crowd chiefly composed of the homeless and starving refugees who have now flocked into the city. It was a short address, without any political flavour: an admission of the Pope’s inability to stop or mitigate the horrors of war even within his own city, a final appeal to the rulers on both sides—and, to the congregation before him, a repetition of the well-known words of Christian consolation: ‘Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden.’ Perhaps never, in all the history of suffering humanity, have these words been spoken to so great an assembly of the homeless, the penniless and the bereft. And when, the address ended, the Pope paused a moment before the Benediction, from thousands of throats came a cry of supplication, unforgettable by anyone who heard it—a cry which sounded like an echo of all the suffering that is torturing the world: ‘Give us peace; oh, give us peace.’

  MARCH 14TH

  The local news is grim. Three young recruits who had failed to report have been shot in Siena, in the presence of their comrades, as ‘an example’. At Piancastagnaio two partisans, who were caught in the woods, have been shot on the spot, and their corpses were hung at the gates of the city. In Florence the whole treasure of the Florentine synagogue—worth several millions and containing, besides wonderful silver work and brocades, the Holy Books of the congregation—has been found by members of the Political Bureau of the National Republican Guard in farm houses near Fiesole and Prato, and has immediately been ‘confiscated’.

  Antonio sent for the young Jugoslav officer who is living in one of our farms and is said to be leading a band of local partisans; the young man, whose name is Larig, says that he has got about a hundred and twenty men, scattered in various farms—but denies that it was they who intended to kill the militiaman at our front door. He now intends, he says, to take all his men in small parties to join the partisan band on Monte Amiata, and the first party will start tonight. But they need wheat and oil, boots and clothes; will we help?

  MARCH 15TH

  Yesterday evening, after dusk, shadowy figures were lurking in our hedges and ditches: the new recruits of the partisans crossing the valley on their way to Monte Amiata. During the night the house of the forestry militiaman—which stands alone in the valley—was surrounded by thirty armed men, who then entered and captured its two inhabitants—confining themselves, however, this time, to threats and to taking off all the men’s clothes, leaving them naked.

  MARCH 17TH

  Antonio returns at two a.m. from Rome, having met on the road German columns and tanks going north. The centre of the town, he reports, looks much the same as usual: all the bombing has been in the suburbs and near the stations. The chief trouble is the lack of water, which is now cut off from private houses but mercifully still remains in some of the public fountains. Long queues stand before them all day, and hand-carts go from house to house selling flasks of water at prices which once would have seemed dear for wine. No gas anywhere, and coal for cooking unprocurable. No light in some parts of the town. No motor-buses, but still some trams. But the really tragic problem is that of the refugees. There are
now over a million of them in the city—evacuees from the bombed Castelli and from the coastal towns, and earlier refugees from southern Italy, who had gone farther north, and after the Anzio landing hurried down to Rome again ‘so as to get home sooner’—as well as many anti-Fascists, who wish to get into touch with the Allies as quickly as possible. Most of them have not even got food-cards and cannot apply for them, since officially they are not there. So they mostly live in the suburbs, going into the centre of the town during the bombing hours, and living on a starvation allowance at the public kitchens. The Vatican is doing what it can and half a million bowls of soup have been distributed this last month by the Circolo di S. Pietro alone—but it is far from meeting the need.

  A member of the German Secret Service in Rome tells a friend of ours that Rome will not be defended, inside the city. The Germans have given up all hope of throwing back the Allies into the sea at Anzio, and are accordingly removing some of their best troops from this front. They will continue their defences round Rome for the present, but if or when the Allies break through at Cassino, will withdraw above Florence, forming their defence line along the Apennines, from Spezia to Rimini. (This is good news for us in Tuscany.) And there—so far as the Italian front is concerned—they expect to remain for the rest of the war.

  MARCH 21ST

  Three days in Florence, seeing friends and doing some shopping—with some difficulty, as the shops have been combed by the Germans and lack even the most necessary things, such as baby’s diapers and children’s vests and jerseys. Moreover, there are two or three air-raid warnings a day, during which the shops are shut and the life of the town is held up. Most people do not take refuge in shelters, but merely go to the centre of the town—where the more devout congregate in the Duomo, and the more frivolous in the Lungarno or on the benches of Palazzo Strozzi. Last Saturday’s bombing was confined to the Rifredi station, the factories round it (a large engine-depot was hit, destroying thirty-six engines) and some villas containing German Commands. But unfortunately one of these—which had previously held Germans—now contains the patients of the children’s hospital, which has been moved out there for greater safety, and there were many casualties—a tragic business. Except for the alarms, and for a certain amount of shooting under one’s windows at night, daily life seemed fairly normal—but everyone is strained and vaguely expecting some new move: and several of the defaulters of the 1922–25 classes have been executed.

  MARCH 22ND

  Return home. The Poggibonsi and the Valdarno roads are now both cut (bridges on them bombed this morning) but the Chianti hill road is still clear, and full of German lorries which have also discovered this route.

  On arriving, after dark, I find two strange young men hanging about the garden, and two others arguing indoors with Antonio. It appears that yesterday an unknown young man appeared on a bicycle and handed to Antonio an illiterate intimidatory letter, ostensibly from a group of partisans, containing a request for an immediate gift of eighty thousand lire. Antonio told him to get out. Then this evening these two others turned up, also with requests for money to help the partisans. Antonio said that he would consider helping them if they could show any proof that they really were partisans—whereupon his guests turned upon each other with eloquent mutual accusations of dishonesty. Finally they went off—and we are now expecting the arrival of other envoys.

  MARCH 24TH

  Last night about a hundred and fifty partisans slept in some of our farms, about a mile away. They turned up in the morning with sacks of flour, baked their bread in the farmer’s oven, and then borrowed his cart to take the loaves away. They had plenty of oil with them (presumably taken from some farm) and a certain amount of tinned food, mostly peaches. Later on in the day, when some German lorries drove up here to fetch some wine, the partisans thought that they were looking for them and prepared an ambush on the hill with machine-guns—but the lorries drove back to Chianciano, unaware of their narrow escape. It looks as if our local guerrilla were beginning.

  MARCH 25TH

  The district nurse (who spends her time tramping from farm to farm, as a severe epidemic of pneumonia—a sort of Spanish influenza—has broken out) reports that at one of our farms, the Sassaia, there are two boys of the 1924 class in bed, dangerously ill with pneumonia—one the farmer’s son, who had joined the partisans, and the other a boy from Bergamo, who knocked one night at the farm for shelter, already very ill. We send them some warm clothes, medicines, milk and food, and the nurse will look after them as best she can. The boy from Bergamo ought to be moved to the clinic for proper nursing, but we dare not do so for fear of being caught.

  The Swiss radio informs us that yesterday in Rome, at a celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Fascist Party, a bomb was thrown by partisans in via Rasella, killing thirty-two German officers and men. The reprisal was swift: a proclamation declaring that for every German killed, ten hostages (‘to be selected in those circles which are presumably responsible for the crime’) will be shot.

  MARCH 26TH

  A letter from Rome, received a few days ago, affirms that the Allies ‘will arrive’ (it does not specify where) before the end of the month. The partisan bands in this district now include many groups which have come down here from farther north, and there are continual rumours of a fresh landing nearby—while certainly the bombing of railways and roads has, within the last few days, been intensified. But there have been so many false alarms before that it is difficult not to be sceptical.

  MARCH 27TH

  Find on my breakfast tray a note from the nurse: ‘Have got a man here with a bullet through his shoulder, who killed a Fascist last night. What shall I do with him?’ Hastily go down to the clinic, and find there three young partisans, all armed, and one with his arm in a sling. One of them is Larig, whom increasingly we do not trust. (Indeed he has hinted that he would be willing to play a double game and act as a spy for the Germans if they should make it worth his while.) The wounded partisan states that last night he and some friends broke into an inn to try and rescue a friend of the 1925 class who had been captured by the Fascist militia. Everyone appears to have fired indiscriminately in a small room; one Fascist was killed, and two others wounded. After his wound has been dressed, the young man goes off to one of our farms, arranging to return after dark for further dressings. Larig, in an attempt to persuade us to give him more food and money, states that ‘an English and an Italian general’ were ‘in these parts’ last night, but when pressed, wriggles out of it. A very fishy customer.

  At night, as Antonio opens the window before going to bed, a bullet whizzes by—quite close, but presumably not aimed at him. All these young men appear to be very ‘easy on the trigger’. (This does not, of course, necessarily mean that they would fight well.)

  MARCH 28TH

  A continual stream of partisans is still passing by, as well as many young soldiers who have escaped from a German labour camp near Orvieto, and are trying to get back to their homes in the north. Six of them turn up this evening, receive food and some clothes, and spend the night in one of the stables. Earlier in the day, two Englishmen turned up—both from Newcastle—who were in a camp near Verona at the time of the armistice. They have twice tried to get through the German lines, and have twice been captured and escaped again. They are particularly cheerful, resourceful young men. At one time, they said, they belonged to a small band of seventy partisans near Florence, but didn’t think much of it. I tell them of the partisans near here, and they think they will try to join them, but when I say they are beginning to help themselves to what they need, say firmly: ‘We shouldn’t like that.’ Send them on, however, to Fonte Lippi, where they can see and decide for themselves.

  Band of partisans

  MARCH 29TH

  Monday’s incident is likely to have a tiresome sequel. Yesterday afternoon a note was brought me, warning me that the Carabinieri of Montepulciano have been informed that the wounded partis
an has taken shelter in our clinic—and that they propose to come and arrest him tomorrow. Antonio is away in Siena, so I send the fattore off to warn the farms. Discover that the story was given away by the nurse’s small niece, who chattered to another child, ‘We’ve got a wounded patriot in the house!’ And so the story spread—and now we may expect trouble. After Antonio’s return we hold a council of war, and instruct the nurse not to deny having dressed the man’s wound, but to point out that, as he was accompanied by two armed men, she had no choice but to do what she was told. She is to add that he left as soon as the wound was dressed, saying that he was leaving the district. (The young man, meanwhile, is hidden in one of our farms, where the nurse is continuing to dress his wound.)

  MARCH 30TH

  Spent yesterday evening in expectation of a Fascist visit—but, as nobody has come, Antonio decided this morning to take the bull by the horns and went off to Montepulciano to call on the captain of the Carabinieri. A curious conversation then ensued, in which the captain fully agreed that there was nothing else that we could have done about the wounded partisan. ‘I certainly can’t protect you,’ he remarked, ‘you must manage as best you can.’ Antonio pointed out that he would probably receive further demands from the partisans for wheat, oil, etc., and that he would be obliged to grant them—and this, too, the captain agreed was inevitable.

  Meanwhile we continue to have many self-invited guests. This morning, I met two American prisoners just outside the house. And this afternoon, walking up our private wood-path to the chapel, Antonio heard some rustling in the bushes, and found a party of fifteen men, armed with a tommy-gun and muskets, and three of them wearing the Communist Red Star—lying in wait, they said, ‘for anyone who comes to make trouble’. Antonio had an amicable conversation with them, suggesting that it is better to avoid unnecessary bloodshed—and then left them there.