Diary of Writing Italy’s Sorrow

Forli, Italy, March  28, 2006
Spent all morning at the Istituto Feruccio Parri and found some great material.  Over all co-ordination of the Partisans was left to the CLN, (National Committee of Liberation), but there were regional organisations too, answerable to the CLN.  In Emilia Romagna this was CUMER (Corpo Militare Unico Emilia Romagna), and all partisan bands in the area were supposed to be under CUMER’s control.  Fortunately, CUMER kept pretty good records, including a monthly write-up of each partisan brigade’s activities during the preceding weeks.  We also discovered quite a bit of correspondence between CUMER and Lupo – and usually Lupo was in trouble for not following the CUMER/CLN line.  I’m getting the impression that the Partisans were a lot more organised and sophisticated than I’d originally appreciated.

In the afternoon we drove off to Reggio Emilia to see Glauco Monducci, a contact that came via Julia’s mother.  He’s written his memoir but told us he hadn’t agreed to an interview before, which was nice to know.  Anyway, he had a very good story [see Oral History Archive] and I must, I think, include him in the book, even if it is at the expense of someone else.

By the time we left it was evening and we drove straight back down the A1, past Bologna and on to Forli, where tomorrow we will be meeting with former partisans of the 8th Garibaldi Brigade.