Darkness was already falling when the news spread, the kind that takes your breath away. Spring had not yet come, and this 1944 had certainly not begun well. On one side the German troops retreating north, by now suspicious, resentful and vindictive toward an ally that had ‘betrayed’ them; on the other the ‘Allied’ bombardments that sought to wear down and hasten the German retreat.
She too was there when the news came. Her name was Veschini Leonilde, but everyone knew her as “la Nilde”. She was a young woman, small, well made, with strongly marked features and eyes that were bright yet deep as a well. She was staying near Castelleone; her husband had been called up and put aboard a troop transport ship that was immediately intercepted by the English navy and diverted, with all its cargo, to the land of His Majesty. She had been born at Collazzone, not far from where she now was, and had then moved to Perugia (not yet fifteen), after losing her mother, to work full time for a few well-off families. Both the presence of countless relatives, nearly all of them Veschini, a very common surname in those lands, and the need to find reasonably safe places, not so much for herself as for her children, led her to long stays in the countryside with her closest kin.
For some time a band of “rebels” had been operating in the area, that is what the peasants and the people of the local villages called them, and always would. In a short time the band had carried out several actions, some of them very daring, against the German troops and the stations of the carabinieri and of the Republican Guard, in order to obtain weapons. The rebels had also requisitioned stores of grain, flour and oil, as at Casalina, then handed out to the local people from whom they had been extorted.
The band was made up mainly of sharecroppers from Castelleone, hence the name they had given themselves, “La Leoni”, and they had chosen as their base the Torre Burchio, set on a rise between Bettona and Castelleone. In the neighbouring areas, meanwhile, a partisan formation made up of young men from Perugia was beginning to operate, and it forged operational ties with La Leoni. In the last few days the “rebels” had stepped up their raids and in a firefight had killed two Germans. In another action they had disarmed and taken prisoner two more German soldiers, who were then brought to the Torre Burchio and treated as “prisoners of war”.
The reaction was not long in coming. The prefect Armando Rocchi urged on, though there was no need, the intervention of the German troops, and together with the Fascist militias took part in the reprisal against the rebels and the civilian population. It is still dark when, on 6 March, into the area, already surrounded during the night, a hundred or so trucks roll in carrying the paratroopers of the “Hermann Goering”; the systematic sweep of the countryside and of civilian homes begins.
The rebel formations try to break out of the encirclement; they manage it thanks to the sacrifice of the deputy commander of La Leoni, Mario Grecchi, who together with five men holds off the German advance for some hours. In the firefight two rebels are killed; others, though wounded, manage to reach safety; Grecchi, mortally wounded, is captured.

All across the area, news of the sweep and of the firefights begins to circulate, but it is fragmentary and uncertain. Only later, though it is not yet confirmed that there have been deaths, the news breaks and spreads quickly that the Germans have taken away and arrested several men: how many? Eight, ten, perhaps more. In the peasant families the anxiety grows; each of them has a relative tied, in one way or another, to the band of rebels, and perhaps it is he who has been taken. On Veschini Nazzareno’s farm there is little doubt: two of his sons were with the rebels. Later, when the news becomes more precise (someone saw them as they were being taken away), comes the confirmation: they are among those arrested and have been taken to Perugia. Marietta arrives; she too is married to a Veschini, she too is a relative, her farm is not far off; she is looking for her fourteen-year-old son Nello, but no one has seen him. Marietta is a reserved woman, of few words, and weeps softly, almost in silence. Other neighbours and relatives arrive, to get news and to give it, to be together in the hope of bearing the tragedy with more strength. Someone saw Nello together with Renato, another of Nazzareno’s sons, he too not yet fourteen. The reckoning is soon made, doubt becomes certainty: they had followed the older brothers, Ettore among them, and so the two of them had been taken as well. What to do? Nilde proposes going to Perugia and trying to speak with some authority or with the German command; staying in Castelleone means only waiting and weeping. She wants to do something for her cousins and for those two boys, and besides it would be too dangerous if men were the ones to go, they would be taken for rebels. An argument breaks out, but she is immovable and asks Marietta to go with her; Marietta is timid, she is afraid, but she is Nello’s mother and, moreover, she trusts Nilde. The preparations are quick, and they set out when it is already deep in the night.
Day was beginning to break when the two women reached the outskirts of Ponte San Giovanni. The sound of engines drew Nilde out of her thoughts; she still did not know what she would do once she reached the city, she was thinking of her children and of her husband, of whom she had had no news for a long time. Headlights lit them from behind, coming closer fast; they were not afraid, one was growing used to anything. A military jeep, with a few German soldiers, stopped, and an odd exchange began, but they understood one another and the soldiers offered them a lift to Perugia, where they were headed. They climbed in; she did not think, in that moment, that those soldiers had perhaps taken part in the previous day’s sweep, she thought only that they were very young and had been kind. They dropped them off in front of the prefecture, which was also the seat of the Head of the Province; they tried in vain to be received, no one paid them any heed.

They then went to the bishop’s residence. They asked to be received by the Bishop; the attendants resisted, it was not possible, they should tell them the reason and they would then inform the Bishop. The reason was given by her, Nilde: it was for those boys, not yet fourteen, seized by the Germans during the sweep in the Deruta area and who would surely be shot that same day; they were there to ask for the Bishop’s direct intervention. But she wanted to speak to him herself, to tell him directly what an enormous injustice was about to be committed, and she pressed her case shouting, weeping and even cursing, because it was not possible that no one would do something to save those boys from death. The Bishop received them, listened to them and tried to reassure them; he would do what he could, but in those circumstances he could not guarantee any result.
The next day, 8 March, the “rebels” seized during the German sweep, after a summary trial at the Lilli, were shot at the XX Giugno firing range; their names: Biagioni Antonio, Tiradossi Pasquale, Veschini Francesco, Veschini Ettore, Nonni Giovanni, Ricciarelli Giulio, Angeletti Mariano, Marinacci Renato. Mario Grecchi, not yet eighteen, was treated, even with blood transfusions, only to be shot at the same range on 17 March 1944. Veschini Roberto and Veschini Nello were not on the list the German command had posted up, announcing the sentence and its immediate execution.
The two boys were released; she did not ask herself whether the boys had been saved thanks to their appeal to the Bishop or by an unexpected act of mercy from the German command. It did not matter to her to know; what counted was that another atrocious crime had not been carried out.
“La Nilde” was my mother.

Aldo Peverini has written articles and essays on advertising and on communication, both commercial and political, including an investigation and study of the state of advertising in Umbria, later published. For about thirty years he has worked in the field of communication and advertising, both commercial and institutional and political, founding communication agencies or working as a consultant. He recently edited the volume Quando la politica era passione una cronistoria, a chronicle of the 1970s in Umbria, recounted, annotated and with an ample photographic apparatus. He is the author of the texts and the screenplay of the Storia di Perugia a fumetti published in 1980, whose second edition is now in the press.