Eravamo partigiani. Ricordi del tempo di guerra (review)

Raimondo Luraghi is Italy's foremost historian of the American Civil War. Eravamo partigiani recalls his life during Italy's 1943–45 civil war. In doing so he has written one of the finest war memoirs this reviewer has ever read. Luraghi has created a testament to courage and patriotism for all time.

That Italy endured civil war during World War II has been acknowledged by Italians only recently. Like the Gaullists in the French case, the Italian parties dominating the First Republic, as well as the Communists, fabricated the fable that most Italians resisted the Germans and their Fascist collaborators of Mussolini's Repubblica Sociale Italiano (RSI). The Cold War's end, however, led Italy's anti-Communist parties to abandon the lie which had cemented their unity. In fact, millions of Italians had supported Fascism after 1943. Well over 600,000 served the RSI in uniform.This acknowledgment, and the neo-Fascists' transformation into a mainstream party, even prompted some hitherto reticent Italians to reveal they had fought for Mussolini after 1943.

The Italian Communists propounded another myth. As the name "partisan" implies, they claimed the Resistance as their own, organized and led by the Partito Communista Italiano (PCI). But, Luraghi explains, partisan units were overwhelmingly formed by those Regio Esercito (Royal [Italian] Army) officers trapped behind German lines in September 1943 who chose resistance. Unaware of Stalinism's horrors and subjected to propaganda, some became Communists. Nonetheless, it was the king's soldiers, not the PCI, who largely created, armed, and disciplined the guerrilla bands, thanks to access to arms and combat skills previously acquired. These soon found themselves isolated among a mostly cowed, indifferent, or pro-Fascist population, while hunted by ruthless, well-armed RSI and Wehrmacht counterinsurgency units. One partisan group was formed by 2nd Lt. Raimondo Luraghi.

Luraghi's eloquent portrayal of his guerrilla days stresses one point. His side battled evil. Unfortunately, it became clear to Luraghi and other early partisans that with the Allies stalled in the south, they faced a long struggle against tremendous odds. Survival until liberation seemed hopeless. Death in battle appeared the best realistic fate. The alternative—capture—meant unspeakable torture, followed by sordid execution to humiliate victims and terrify observers. Yet surrender or desertion felt inconceivable. Luraghi and his fellows had become partisans out of revulsion against Fascism and Nazism, rage at the Germans, and shame over Regio Esercito collapse in September 1943. That shame bit with excruciating pain. Fighting, if necessary, dying to restore national honor, alone made their lives bearable. Yet that proved exhilarating. The partisans were mostly young, bound by mutual devotion, and intoxicated by the freedom of their existential choice. That few had the virtue to make and sustain that commitment made them an elite army of heroes. Their fugitive nocturnal acts of sabotage, ambush, and escape; their forays into enemy territory to gather intelligence or rescue captive comrades make this book almost unbearably exciting to read. But those exploits serve only as an attractive cover to the basic, astoundingly ironic, message of this book. The Fascists were correct that war could be the greatest human experience. Their moral degeneracy lay in ascribing that quality to any conflict. Luraghi's memoir makes clear that it depends on what one fights for and against.