Bologna, March 24 2003
Our last day. We were to meet three former Partisans, Gastone Sgargi, Hector Benassi and Carlo Venturi, in Bologna – actually, at Bologna FC to be precise, where Gastone has an office. All of they had been born and brought up in Bologna and for them running away to become Partisans had been a simple but terrible choice. Either they stayed and fought for the Fascists, or refused and faced execution as ‘deserters’. The only alternative was to flee to the hills and join the Stella Rossa. When they did so, they had to get rid of all means of identification and have no contact whatsoever with their families – to do so would have been far too risky. Even British troops away from home for years at a time had letters. Gastone told us he did not hear a word about his family until August 1945. All were lively and generous to a fault. Hector had to leave after an hour or so, but Carlo and Gastone insisted on giving us a pair of boxing gloves, a bottle of limoncello and then took us out to lunch. It was a fantastic day and as I left Roddy at the airport afterwards I felt more than happy with what we’d learnt in the previous few days. I am definitely going to tackle this new book from all sides and include the fate of the poor old Italians, so often overlooked by British and American historians.

Monte Sole, March 23 2003
I woke up early and decided to climb to the summit of Monte Sole before breakfast. It’s not a huge climb and I easily found a path. The summit was very wooded and I could easily see how the Partisans of the Stella Rossa and the other men of the mountains would have chosen to hide there and also why the Germans would have struggled to clear it entirely. The undergrowth is really thick off the beaten track. It was also very quiet – until something rustled nearby making me jump out of my skin. I then saw a wild boar snuffle away just twenty yards from me. At the summit the views were amazing. The cemetery below was very visible, but so was the Setta Valley beyond. There was a plinth dedicated to the Stella Rossa. On it someone had daubed ‘Vie Lupo’ with a spray can. Presumably ‘Long Live Lupo’ – the leader of the Stella Rossa, who had been killed in the massacre.

After breakfast Roddy and I decided to try and find Gianni Rossi. Gianni was the 2nd in command of the Stella Rossa – Lupo’s No. 2. Cornelia had told us that she was sure he was still alive and had told us to ask for him in the bar at Gardelletta, where both she and Gianni had lived as children. She was fairly sure he still did. Off we set and sure enough found the bar. We had a coffee but they told us Gianni was no longer living in the village. ‘He lives in Vado,’ the old lady told us. ‘Ask at the bar there.’ So we drove to Vado, further along the Setta Valley and the scene of a number of attacks by the Stella Rossa back in 1944. Vado was a small town and had several bars. I also noticed ‘Via M. Musolesi’ (Lupo’s real name) and even ‘Via G. Rossi.’ We called in at one bar. Yes, they knew of him, but he didn’t live in Vado any more. ‘There’s a bar about a kilometre out of town. Go there. They’ll know where he is.’ On we went again and this time struck gold. ‘You’ve just missed him,’ the barman told us, but then, with a small amount of persuasion, told us his address, which was a flat only a few yards down the road. I felt quite nervous as we knocked on his door. A small, old man with a square face and not much hair answered the door. He looked a bit caught off guard but did agree to talk to us. ‘Come back this afternoon,’ he told us. Elated, we went back to the bar next door. ‘What’s his favourite drink?’ Roddy asked the barman. ‘If you want to get him something, buy him cigarettes,’ came the reply.

Armed with 200 Italian cigarettes, we knocked on Gianni’s door once more at 2 o’clock. The cigarettes went down a treat and we were ushered into his living room. His stories were amazing. One was about grappling with a traitor in a mountain cave. The man was on top of him, a dagger getting closer and closer to Gianni’s head until it pierced his forehead. At that moment, Lupo managed to pull the man off and between them, they disarmed him. ‘What did you do to him after that?’ I asked. ‘Took him outside,’ Gianni said, then he pretended to fire a shot with his hand. At one point I asked him how he had felt about opening fire on his fellow countrymen. He shrugged and said, ‘They had their dance and we had ours.’

Roddy was pretty exhausted after that, but we still had an appointment to go and see Francesco Pirini in Gardelletta. Francesco had witnessed nine members of his family being shot, but rather like Cornelia, was incredibly magnanimous about it. He told us about a film crew who had wanted to come and interview him. They had found a German officer who had taken part in the massacres on Monte Sole and had asked Francesco whether he would meet this man – called Meyer. ‘I said of course,’ Francesco told us. He even said he would happily shake his hand. We were both absolutely gobsmacked.

Monte Sole, March 22 2003
We got up and after getting completely lost, eventually found Cornelia Paselli’s flat. We also managed to find a florist – arriving with flowers or a bottle of something is not just a common courtesy, but also shows, I think, that I’m not taking their help for granted. At least, I hope it has that effect. Roddy was brilliant at translating. I’d ask a question, he’d translate, then repeat back in English the gist of what she’d said. I scribbled away, but also had the recorder. To begin with started gently, talking about life in her home village in the 1920s and thirties. We talked about her family, and her childhood. All the time I could sense we were building up to the big moment and when it came, she was unflinching. There was not so much as a tear as she calmly told us about being lined up with her mother, brother and two sisters and machine-gunned. She only survived because moments before a German soldier had lobbed a grenade and the blast had knocked her unconscious. When she came to, she was drenched in blood and covered in bodies. Her mother was alive but dying, her younger brother and sister – twins – were dead, and her other sister was just about alive having survived a bullet grazed across her head. She lay where she was from around 9.30am until about 4 o’clock that same afternoon. Both Roddy and I were completely chilled to the core. I have never ever heard anything quite so harrowing in my entire life.

Later we headed to Marzabotto, some twenty miles south of Bologna, where we met up with Anna Salerno. As before, she was incredibly helpful and told of the other appointments she had fixed up: another survivor of the massacre, Francesco Pirini, tomorrow, and then the next day, three former Partisans, all members of the Stella Rossa. Later in the afternoon, Roddy and I drove up into the mountains themselves, booking ourselves into a hostel high on the mountain plain. It’s very beautiful up there. Sixty years ago, this was home to a number of villages – or rather, clusters of farmhouses. All are now ruined. We went to the remains of San Martino then to Casaglia, beneath Monte Sole. Within the trees and undergrowth you can see the remains of old buildings, now ruined. We saw a car and an old man placing a wreath on one of the buildings. Perhaps it was just me, but I felt a very real sense of sadness still hanging over the place. It was so quiet and still and so devoid of human life any more. We saw the ruin of the church where Cornelia Passeli and her family had huddled before being marched with 170 others to the cemetery, then walked on to the cemetery itself. It’s only a couple of hundred yards further on from the church, and, I imagine, largely unchanged since those terrible events all those years before. The old man caught up with us and placed another wreath on the iron gate of the cemetery – the same gate, presumably, through which the Germans had wheeled their machine gun.
I looked up at the summit of Monte Sole, clearly visible. Cornelia had said her father had seen the executions from up there and I could understand how he would have become demented seeing what he had. We both felt rather depressed when we left.

Bologna, March 21 2003
Every so often I find myself getting a lead and then feeling a colossal sense of urgency to follow it up. When I read about the massacre at Marzabotto for the first time, I knew I had to find out more right away, even though I am principally working on my North Africa book. It has been surprisingly easy to track survivors down. The massacre may be little known about generally, but it’s understandably still a big deal in Marzabotto, where there is an archive dedicated to the history of the area and, of course, the massacre itself. Anna Salerno is the person I’ve been corresponding with – thankfully she speaks English well enough. It’s my old friend Roddy, though, who has really been my saviour. We shared a house together at university but he’s married an Italian and has been living near Florence for the past few years; moreover, he speaks Italian completely fluently and has agreed to help out. What a good friend! He was there at the airport in Bologna and together we headed off into the centre of the city. It’s a fabulous place – vibrant and beautiful. In Piazza Maggiore we noticed a large plaque dedicated to the Partisans of the city who were killed during the war. There was no mention of anyone who’d died fighting for the Neo-Fascists.