to make a simple mistake. I suppose that once he was in the building, he just let the others in. But I wonder how they found us in the first place.’
‘Obviously, they were tracking the signal. We knew it would happen one day. I just can’t believe I was so foolish; I made it so easy for them.’
‘Look,’ said Livia, ‘they’d have got in somehow. They’d have rung the bell to another apartment and forced the owner to open up; we were just unlucky.’
Livia thought back to that night, and wondered if Cosimo and the family had got away. She hoped they had, and that one day, she would escape too and see them again.
One evening, after they had all been counted into the barracks for the night, Livia and Valentina lay on their beds watching the sun setting over the woods. In the soft light, her eyes ached less, and she was able to make out the shapes of trees in the distance. She was imagining how wonderful it would be to be in those woods, smelling the pine, feeling the leaves beneath her feet, when she heard shouting.
‘Valentina,’ Livia whispered. ‘What’s happening out there?’
Valentina looked out of the window. ‘Oh my God,’ she said.
‘What?’ asked Livia anxiously.
‘The guards are herding men into lorries. I can see Paulo and Sergio – did they mention they were being moved on?’
‘No,’ said Livia. ‘They would have told me if they were going.’
There was more shouting from outside.
‘What’s happening now?’ Livia asked frantically.
‘They’re resisting. Sergio is shouting at the guard. Oh! The guard’s hit him with the butt of his machine gun.’
‘Valentina, I don’t think they’re going to another camp,’ said Livia nervously. ‘Someone in the kitchen told me that before they move you, they give you papers. Paulo and Sergio didn’t have any papers.’
‘So what do you think is going to happen to them?’ asked Valentina.
‘I don’t know, but I think we should pray for them.’
The following morning, the camp was alive with rumours. One of the prisoners who served in the officers’ mess, had overheard two soldiers talking over breakfast. About thirty men had been taken to a clearing a few miles from the camp and machine-gunned to death. It was a reprisal for a partisan attack on a train leaving Genoa filled with German troops. It was rumoured that two partisans had managed to escape.
‘Do you think it could be Paulo and Sergio?’ asked Valentina that evening.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Livia, ‘but if anyone could escape, it would be those two.’
Over the following days, lorryloads of prisoners were removed from the camp. Most were destined for camps in Germany – a guaranteed death sentence in itself. One evening after exercise, the women in Livia’s barracks were all handed their transfer papers.
‘I’m being sent to Brandenburg, in Germany,’ Valentina said, opening the envelope. ‘What about you?’
‘The same place... do you think we’ll survive?’ Livia asked uncertainly.
‘Of course,’ said Valentina, putting her arms around her. ‘We will, Livia, you’ll see.’
The women piled into a lorry the following morning. From the camp, they were to travel first to Verona, where they would spend the night before being put on a train and sent to Germany.
Arriving in Verona late in the afternoon, they were herded into an empty school and marched to the gymnasium, where they were instructed to sleep on the floor, watched over by guards.
‘I told you I have relatives up here, didn’t I?’ Valentina whispered to Livia as they lay down on the floor. ‘Well, I have a cousin who lives here, in Verona. I’ve not seen him for years, but he works for the railway, I think. If we can get away, I’m sure he will help us.’
Livia reached over and squeezed her friend’s hand. A guard patrolling the gymnasium noticed the women whispering and hit Livia on the back with the butt of his gun. ‘Sleep, bitch!’
She closed her eyes, but lay awake most of the night, her mind racing. Could they possibly escape? And if so how?
The following morning, the women joined hundreds of other prisoners being herded at gunpoint towards the railway station. SS guards frogmarched them three abreast in a long column of people snaking through the streets of Verona. The sight of so many of their countrymen being treated in this way brought out the crowds, who lined the streets muttering their distaste.
As the column neared the station, a group of men at the front tried to make an escape, rushing off into the