I was at home with my mother in the Old Village. On the morning of December 4, my father came running home from the mill: "Get out! The Germans are burning the houses!". They set the mines and they gave us until 10 to get out. Mamma went to Largo del Principe, got the pig out of the sty and tied it up to a post nearby. She took shelter under a sort of stone archway, and she called to other women to come and join her, but they wouldn’t. When the mines went off, mamma was crushed under the stones, but the pig nearby survived. I had already run off down the hill past Calcare to a farmhouse owned by an aunt.

The things we salvaged from the house were left at Piedicastello. I ran down the hill carrying Luciano, my 10-month old son, in my arms. The following night my father came to see us to tell us mamma could not be found. We thought she had gone to my brother Minco’s at Casette. The following morning, my father went to Minco’s and together they went to the Old Village. Mamma’s neighbours helped them to lift the stone and they found mamma dead. Minco wouldn’t let anybody touch her. Later we had a coffin made from planks of wood, held together with nails taken from the old doors lying around. We carried her to the cemetery without a funeral. Some months later we had a mass said for her. We went to stay with Minco at Casette for the winter. Ten of us slept in the one room, with no light except for an oil lamp.

At Valloncello two children had been crushed by a rock. They too had been trying to hide a pig. But some people had escaped by staying put. One old woman refused to leave her home and the Germans set mines in the houses either side (belonging to Nicolino Troilo and Concetta Stella). The old woman survived. When she emerged she shook the dust off her shawl and said: "Even the war won’t take me!".

Behind Santa Maria Maggiore, one room was left standing and all the shopkeepers in the village took there things there and set up a store. Throughout the winter, they all sold their goods from that room. Prices did go up, but not much.