In Europe

I got out, I looked around in amazement. The world had changed so drastically! Germany was all over Europe, in France, in Belgium and the Netherlands, they had even occupied part of Italy. In 1936 there had been almost no anti-Fascists in Italy. We felt very much alone. But by the time I was released, all the young men were itching to fight against Germany.
    ‘After that I started organising the political actions and the propaganda for our resistance group. Of course we knew that our struggle barely added up to anything amid that huge war, that the Russians and Americans were the ones who really made the difference. But we fought along anyway, because we wanted to be part of it too. We didn't want the new Italy to exist only by virtue of other people's sacrifices and other people's decisions. We wanted the new democracy to be stronger than the old one.
    ‘And we felt a new unity. During my time in the resistance I made friends with people like Andreotti and Cossiga. After the war we were appointed to the assembly that was to draft the new constitution. We would argue all morning, work hard in the afternoon, and voted in unison in the evening. That sense of unity was a product of the resistance.
    ‘Liberalism and democracy have had a hard time of it here. The Italians invented Fascism. We did that! We mustn't try to avoid that responsibility. But the anti-Fascist constitution we drew up back then is something they've never been able to take away from us.’
    ‘Today I'm so old that I'm almost blind. When I first opened my eyes to the light, in 1915, all the countries of Europe were busy slaughtering each other. And each of those countries felt that justice was on its side. I can still remember a few things about the First World War. The whole thing is surrounded in my mind by an atmosphere of emotion and tragedy, yes, our family was quite occupied with the war. I still remember when Italy joined the war in 1915. I was four at the time, and I stayed afraid throughout the entire war.
    ‘Now that my eyes have almost completely dimmed, I see, by that last light, that the countries of Europe are embracing each other and forgetting their borders. That whole turnaround took place within the space of my almost ninety years. I still find that unbelievable. But I also know how difficult it has been.’

    If motorways are the cathedrals of the twentieth century, then the Brenner Pass is its St Peter's, a miracle of road building, the artery carrying the lifeblood of Europe. After days of waiting I was finally able to leave the North, across the pass, in a long, lazy convoy. Huge orange snowploughs were working everywhere, the men driving them worked in their T-shirts, they were the heroes of the mountain. Close to the top the trucks stood growling and steaming in a traffic jam without end, at least ten kilometres of washing machines from Holland, cheese from Denmark, Velux windows from Germany, a family's belongings being moved down from Venlo, Ikea furniture from Sweden, refrigerated trailers full of frozen pigs, chickens and cows, tankers full of wine and lubricant, everything Europe had on sale was being dragged back and forth across that pass.
    And then the road slopes down, and suddenly the last vestiges of winter disappear, the world becomes spacious and clear, at Trento the vintners are cheerfully spraying their vines, the grasses are flowering and it's Pentecost in Verona.
    At Bologna, the road is blocked. I stumble for the first time upon the new war. While Northern Europe sits quietly in front of the TV, looking at distant victims in unfamiliar towns, here the protests echo in the streets. The procession is led by a ramshackle Fiat with three loudspeakers on the roof, then the banners and red flags and behind them some 2,000 socialists, communists, anarchists, even Gypsies. In the course of a single weekend I count forty such demonstrations reported in the Italian papers: in Milan, Rome, Genoa, Naples, Cremona … Workers from Fiat and Alfa Romeo are rallying to the aid of their colleagues at the bombed Zastava plants. The collecting boxes rattle for Belgrade and Novi Sad.
    In the old centre of Bologna the protest songs ring through the galleries, drums and trumpets are heard everywhere, a few proletarian leftist comrades have even brought along an antique air-raid siren, to make us feel as though we are in Belgrade. The group consists largely of older combatants who walk down the street conversing calmly between