During the Second World War my family provided direct assistance to escaped Allied prisoners of war. In particular, my great-grandmother Bianca’s family, made up of six siblings, lived in a small village in the province of Fermo, in the Marche region. After September 8, 1943, when many Allied soldiers managed to escape from prison camps and found themselves fleeing into the Italian countryside, the local population often faced difficult and dangerous choices.

According to the stories told me repeatedly by my great-grandmother and later also by my grandmother, their family decided to host and protect two Allied soldiers. Despite the scarcity of food and the extremely high risk of reprisals, they offered them shelter and help, aware of the danger they faced.

At a certain point, German soldiers arrived in the village looking for them. The family, knowing they were under surveillance, managed to hide the two men in the haystack, a simple but effective place to escape searches. However, the Germans suspected that someone was helping them and, as punishment and intimidation, took away one of my great-grandmother’s brothers.

Fortunately, despite the gravity of the situation, that brother later managed to escape and return home.