As Aventuras de Umberto Eco na II Guerra Mundial

It was at the Oratorio, after September 8th of 1943, that I first heard about the partisans. For a while, they were just boys who were trying to avoid either the Repubblica Sociale’s new draft or the Nazi roundups, which meant being sent off to work in Germany. Later, people began to call them rebels, because that was what they were called in official communiqués. Only when we found out that ten of them had been executed—including one from Solara—and when we heard via Radio London that special messages were being directed to them, did we begin to call them partisans, or patriots, as they preferred. In Solara, people rooted for the partisans, because the boys had all grown up in those parts, and when they came around, although they all now went by nicknames—Hedgehog, Ferruccio, Lightning, Bluebeard—people still used the names they had known them by before. Many were youths I had seen at the Oratorio, playing hands of in flimsy, threadbare jackets, and now they reappeared wearing brimmed berets, cartridge belts over their shoulders, submachine guns, belts with two grenades attached, or even holstered pistols. They wore red shirts, or jackets from the English Army, or the pants and leggings of the King’s officers. They were beautiful.