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This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Suffolk on behalf of Elide Layfield and has been added to the site with her permission.

I lived in a village outside Venice called Castel Franco in the province of Treviso, Veneto. My father had fought in WW1 and ever since then he had been a Partisan.

I was a barely teenager when WW2 broke out, and even from that age I was helping my parents and the Resistance to look after escaped prisoners of war. The prisoners were brought up through Italy by the Resistance and other Partisans, collected by us in the north of Italy and hidden around the village and countryside until they could complete their escape. One of these allied soldiers was later to become my husband, but that’s another story. He was a British Sergeant Major who had become a prisoner during the allied landings. He was taken to Naples and put on a train to Germany and then managed to escape. He ended up with the Partisans who brought him to Castel Franco, Veneto, and into my life. Apart from the British we also helped Canadians, lots of South Africans & Indians as well as many others.

One of my aunts had a large farm with woodlands, and many were hidden there. I had to be very careful whenever I spoke to anyone around the village, as I didn’t know if they were working with the SS. In many Mediterranean countries children only go to school in the mornings because of the heat. After school I would cycle to the woods, taking messages, food & clothing. I was never afraid, and would signal to them by whistling different tunes so they would know if it was safe to come out or not.

The Germans occupied the whole area. They took over all the large houses and main buildings, including the schools. This meant I had to leave school and go to work in a munitions factory. The shift work was very hard.

Italy had two kinds of army. One was the Italian King’s army, and any soldiers in this were sent by the Fascists to the front lines where the greatest danger was. The other was the Fascists army or ‘Black Shirts’ as they were known. This was the army that fought for Mussolini, and the Germans.

An incident that made a big impression on me concerned some distant relatives. Two young brothers who were working with the Partisans and exposed by a Fascist spy, were caught, handed over to the SS and taken to the town centre, where their mother was forced to stand and watch as they were brutally beaten and then hung from a tree and left to die slowly. Their bodies were left hanging from the tree until the following day as a warning to everyone.

As the Germans knew many villagers were working with the Underground, our houses were often searched. On one occasion they searched our house and left without finding anything. This was a great relief as on top of a wardrobe was a box with information relating to all the activities of the local Underground movement!

When the war ended my parents and I each received a letter of thanks from Field Marshal H R Alexander, Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theatre, thanking us for our part in helping the Allies.

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