Margherita’s story

We got into a one-sided conversation with a lady who lived on that road. She went into great detail about her family during the war, reading from about seven pages of memoirs. What we could make out was quite interesting, but there was a lot that we couldn’t understand at all. I had the advantage of seeing the written pages, while J had to smile, frown and nod a lot. The story was that Margherita’s mother was from Naples but moved to Presanzano where she had some children (we couldn’t pick how many), possibly when her husband died. In Presanzano she lived next to a wonderful cantina where all sorts of nice bread and cake was sold before the war. There were 8 Germans billeted nearby in late 1943. She had made some bread and a German came and tried to take it away. She tried to pull it back from under his arm, but eventually one way or another he must have ended up with it. The Germans liked the white bread as a change from their black rye bread. After this she hid her bread under the eaves of the house and when more Germans came she told them that the first had taken all she had.

During the war 13 bombs fell on this part of the village, one of which landed outside the door while they were having breakfast. It blew the door down, but as far as we could tell no-one was injured at this point, although another person, probably another of Margherita’s sisters, was caught in a bombing/shelling raid and received a serious wound to the lower torso. She was taken to the hospital in Naples where she died after 4 (or 40) days. Perhaps they were the same event?

Margherita’s brother had volunteered for the Black Shirts in 1936 and served until 1940. Then in 1941 he was called up again and fought in Tunisia. Later he was transferred to Yugoslavia and his mother used to send him cards of Saint Margherita, because of his sister’s name. In August 1943 he deserted, but he and a friend were caught and sent to a German prison camp. As far as we could make out he was killed in a bombing raid while the friend escaped.

It was a horrible war for her mother: poor, hungry and afraid, and with two children killed. She lived into her 60s (we think).

Of course, with our Italian, half of this could just be misunderstandings! 8-)