We here offer a touching testimony, collected by Enrico Fiori, concerning a person who, as a child, lived the drama of the war at the Cerreta Mill.
"I lived at the Cerreta Mill until I was 6 years old in 1949. I lived there with my family, mother, father and three brothers. At the mill we ground chestnuts, corn, wheat and we were paid with the "Molenda", bags of flour; there was no money but exchange, and the gatherers came from all over Garfagnana. In 1945, when the German defensive line, called the Gothic Line, was collapsing under the Allied's attack, the Germans occupied the Mill to create a command post, as the Cerreta was in a hidden and protected place. My father had been wounded at an arm by shrapnel during a bombing raid and had been forced to leave the house for treatment; he had crossed the Gothic Line and reached Barga, where the American Command Post was located.
My mother was therefore alone at home with me, two years old, and my three brothers aged 11, 12, 13. When the Germans arrived, they threw our mattresses (made of leaves) out of the windows and wanted to burn them. Fortunately a Polish soldier, the "Polacchino" (he was so good!), stopped them from doing so and took the matresses downstairs to the mill, where we could sleep. When it came time to eat, my brothers would line up for food and, thankfully, they were given some.
On the last night the Germans had to retreat in order to escape; they dismantled their things and said they would burn everything, as to leave no traces. “Tomorrow we'll burn the house”. My mother thought she couldn't escape with such small children and that the end had come. Fortunately, a good neighbour, risking his own life, decided to come and encourage us, locking himself up in the house with us. You can imagine the anguish of that night, but in the morning the Germans left without burning down the house. We were safe!
The Mill was abandoned four years later, for the damage caused by a flood, triggered by a landslide that broke away from the mountain and made the stream overflow."
