Alba de Céspedes’s Broadcasts Against Fascism

On September 8, 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allies, and the Germans, who already effectively controlled the north of Italy, turned on their former partners and moved to take over the rest of the country. A few days later, they reached Rome. The writer Alba de Céspedes, who lived in the city, found the occupation increasingly oppressive, and decided to leave. The Allies had landed in the south and were advancing northward, and de Céspedes assumed that they would soon arrive in Rome and her exile would be brief. She found shelter in a village in the countryside. But the progress of the Allies was slow, and, as the Germans began raiding villages, she was forced to flee. With a small group of fellow-refugees, she lived in hiding in the woods for a month, evading German patrols. She was finally able to cross the Sangro River, which marked the German front line, and reach the safety of the Allied zone. She ended up in Bari, where, together with other journalists from Rome and local antifascists, she went to work for Radio Bari. Taken over by the Allies, the station had become the voice of free Italy, seeking to connect the liberated south with the German-occupied center and north by broadcasting news of the war, partisan information, and encouragement. De Céspedes was made the director of a program called “L’Italia Combatte!” (“Italy Fights!”). She herself broadcast twice a week under the name Clorinda, the warrior heroine of the epic “Gerusalemme Liberata” (“Jerusalem Delivered”), by the sixteenth-century poet Torquato Tasso.

In a short piece published near the end of the war, de Céspedes described the experience of working on “L’Italia Combatte!”:

The broadcast studio . . . was an ordinary room lined with tattered black curtains. . . .  Jealously we closed the door in the manner of a frontier guard, and immediately felt ready and alert, like soldiers before the attack. And in fact that was our trench: from there we fought, although it was a battle of words. . . . In front of us was the microphone, cold. Maybe, beyond that, people were listening, patriots in mountain shelters, citizens in their houses, all risking their lives to listen to us. Or maybe no one listened: the broadcasts, we knew, could be jammed.

De Céspedes’s broadcasts convey the urgency of Radio Bari’s efforts; the three here, translated into English for the first time, address, in particular, the women of Italy, whose husbands were often taken away in the middle of the night. In late February, 1944, de Céspedes moved to Naples, where she continued broadcasting as Clorinda for Radio Napoli. Rome was liberated, at last, in June, and she returned home.

The Germans Say “Komm”

Tonight a woman is speaking to you. A woman who left her house in the space of two hours, ended up on a train at dawn, spent gruelling days fleeing the Germans from village to village, and then decided to ford the Sangro River and cross the line of fire to get to this side. But tonight I’m not speaking to you as a journalist or a writer. Tonight I want to speak as a woman to the countless Italian women who are waiting for the return of their men who are down here and have remained locked in the darkness of separation, without news, without promises, without a date that might put an end to their wait. Everyone speaks to men because they’re the ones fighting and in danger, but no one has yet spoken to the women who wait for them. It takes a lot of courage to wait: a procession of solitary days in a cold house where the beloved voice no longer sounds, every day like the others, one more gone, but what does it matter? Sometimes we think it will be like this forever.

I know there are moments when you no longer have the strength to wait. At night, for example, when the house is silent and your work is done. Then you go into the living room, where two matching armchairs hold deep imprints of long sojourns—and one of these chairs is empty now. Beside the chair is the radio and you look at the face, you look right where “Bari” is written and the needle is stopped. Maybe he’s down there, and so you’d like to turn the switch affectionately, as if seeking a helping hand. But sometimes you don’t want to do it. A sort of sullen hostility restrains you, like a scowl. At those moments, I know, you think he was wrong to leave. You think he should have been able to stay in the city, or find refuge in a small town, with you.

That would have been easy, you think. And yet it’s not true; I’m going to tell you the fate of many of the men who remained. In the towns of Abruzzo, the Germans arrived at night: some emerged from the trucks with pistols in hand, others stayed behind machine guns aimed at any who might try to escape. They beat on doors with their rifle butts, and if no one answered they bashed in the door and entered the house. Look around, dear listeners. They were homes like yours: furniture chosen with care, photographs, memories—in short, the intimacy of two people who care for one another. And the Germans entered forcibly, violating all that, desecrating it with their presence. Like that, they would appear in the bedroom, where, sometimes, a frightened child had already begun to cry. “Komm,” they said, nothing else.

The man had to dress in an instant. The wife asked, begged: Where? Where? Until when? There was no answer. She would see the dear companion of her life disappearing among unknown soldiers. Countless memories rose, countless things to say. But the door had already closed—she couldn’t follow him, she could only weep and lament.

That was at Monte Odorisio. At Torricella Peligna, on the other hand, they arrived at eleven in the morning. Many men had already been living in the woods for some time, but others, in disbelief, had stayed in the town: They won’t come here, they thought, it’s a mountain village, they’ll pass by here without stopping. But the truck halted in the middle of the square. They’ll want the cars, everyone thought, or maybe they’ll want the radio, or the animals.

But they went straight to the men, looked at them with hard eyes. “Komm,” they said. Sixty men loaded into a big tank, packed in together like animals. Not even the time to say farewell: “Nein,” they responded harshly, “Nein.”

Then the women came out, mothers, wives, daughters, crowded around the truck, but they couldn’t even get close: the Germans kept them away with guns levelled. Finally, the truck left, and the women began shouting, crying; they ran after the truck, as long as possible, calling out names aloud: Mario, Francesco, Luigi. One of them, at a bend in the road, got out of the moving truck. Donato was his name. But a machine-gun volley hit him at the waist, nearly breaking him in two. He fell down in the street and remained there, his arms reaching out toward his house and his wife. He had four children.

Well, all that could have happened if he had stayed with you. These are true facts I’m telling you, seen with my own eyes. It’s not propaganda, you understand? Maybe for you it’s hard to believe, but here propaganda doesn’t exist. We come to the microphone and say whatever we want. I wanted to tell you this to bring you some comfort. Because I, too, once waited for someone; I, too, thought he was wrong to go. You’re alone now. And it’s very difficult, I know. But if he had stayed beside you, there, in that chair, one evening you might have heard the door open violently, and a harsh voice shout “Komm.” I wanted to tell you not to feel sorry for him; maybe sometimes you think he might not have made it—some misfortune might have struck him first. And yet we all arrived. The peasants helped us, they lent us their clothes, they welcomed us to their tables, they hid us in their shelters. For the first time we felt like a big family: a people united, in short. He made it, he’s here, and the distance is hard for him, too. But we have to be strong, and endure. You’ve been very strong. Courage. Turn on the radio sometimes at this hour. It will be like an appointment with him. He’ll speak to you through Clorinda; I want all men who are anxious to return to their houses, and their women, and not to leave them again, to speak through me.

What Your Men Are Asking of You

Tonight, my words are addressed to you, Italian women who live north of the Sangro and Garigliano Rivers, in the area invaded by the Germans. Many of you have husbands, brothers, sons who are down here, on the other side; others have fiancés, men you’re bound to by a loving promise. Some of those men are soldiers in this zone, some were on ships or at airports, others separated from you to cross the lines and you didn’t dare restrain them, knowing that that was their explicit duty. At times it was you yourselves who pushed them to leave, to escape, or to follow their impulse or their conscience.

By now months have passed. And you know nothing more about them. An occasional brief message on the radio is the only thing that has given comfort to your anxious wait. So many things you’d like to know—what they think, what they say. You’d like to get a letter, some communication. You would do anything for them, to help them, anything to see them again soon. And tonight I’m bringing you a message from them. It’s as if I knew you, I’ve seen the creased photos so many times, worn by being taken out of wallets several times a day. They’re pinned to the walls of tents, framed on the desks in offices. Your men are reaching toward you, toward return; they speak of nothing else—they remember today is your name day, tomorrow the child’s birthday. And they understand your pain because it’s similar to theirs.

One thing alone they would not understand. One thing alone they fear from you. That you might help the Germans, vilely, warily, might not resist them, as they, your men, wish. They fear that a daughter of theirs, a sister, might go with one of those hateful soldiers. That they couldn’t forgive, no, that they would never forgive. They want you to be with them, in this fight, as if you were side by side, despite the frontier that separates you.

You must put up a passive resistance, covert and continuous. Save everything possible in the houses and the countryside; bury possessions and harvest. Never answer when they ask for directions, or else provide wrong ones. Those of you who live in the countryside, you have a duty to actively do something to help your men. A woman can act more easily, without being too closely observed. She can roll logs into the street, scatter nails, change or remove signs or directional arrows. Cut telephone or telegraph wires. Many of you are employed as telephone or telegraph operators: well, slow down the pace of your work, and slow down the Germans and the fascists. Lose letters, deliver them late, don’t allow intercity communications. Typing should be distracted and slow. Saleswomen should hide goods in order not to sell them to the Germans. All of you say you’re sick as often as you can. Besides, you know very well that no one is more cunning and acute than a woman in love, no one more stubborn than a mother who wants to help or protect her own son. You know better than I what needs to be done. It’s enough never to forget your duty to help your men, work with them: stay united with them in the shared work, the common effort, as in a loving understanding. You know now that this is what your men ask of you. They ask you not to help the Germans, not to go out with them, to put up a silent, secret resistance, to fight them with sabotage where you can. That is what you can, you must, do, so that the men you love will return to you on a not too distant day, in a free and tranquil world.

Christmas Night

Dear women who are listening tonight, I’m here to keep my appointment with you, even though it’s Christmas. The others were still at the table, and I got up. “I’ll be right back,” I said. I crossed the deserted city alone (have you noticed how deserted the city is on Christmas night?), and came here, to the studio, because I needed to talk to you.

I’m a little depressed tonight, and you are, too, I know. This is a difficult evening, and so it’s better if we can get through it together. Maybe none of you have ever seen a radio studio: our voices come to you from the shadows—we’re merely voices, not real people. And yet we’re here, people like other people, in a padded room with a big glass window at one end. Next to me are the announcers; on the other side of the window the sound engineer is watching us. But, you see, for us Radio Bari isn’t a station like any station: its three square metres are Italy, all Italy united. All our cities are in here, even the most remote, and it seems to us that we can contain them in a single embrace. So I wanted to come here, even though it’s Christmas and even though I’m a little depressed; besides, the announcer and the others here with me are also a little depressed, although you’d never know from their voices. Their wives and children are on the other side of the front, and for them, too, it’s a difficult evening. You may not know that every night, when our broadcast begins and we hear the first notes of the Garibaldi hymn, our hearts beat as they haven’t for a long time—it’s been years since we felt anything like that. I was a child, I remember, and someone came into the house shouting, “We’ve taken Trento and Trieste!” Similarly, every night when we’re here in the studio, our hearts beat as if we were in the trenches, before the attack. In fact, this is our little trench.

And yet I see you tonight, dear listeners, even though I can’t hear your words: it’s as if I could see you moving through a pane of glass. Some went to dinner at relatives’, then the children got sleepy, so you went home early, crossing, as I did, the melancholy and deserted city; others stayed home and lighted the candles on the tree even if you didn’t feel like it, because it’s not right for war—apart from the rest—to destroy the legends and illusions of children. Still others are with people, and yet nearly everyone came to the radio at this time and looked for Bari; he may be down there, or in any case in a part of Italy divided from you by the front. And an insuperable melancholy pervades you, a sort of bitterness toward this Christmas that arrives just the same, even though he isn’t there. You think it was selfish to leave like that, following his principles, his ideals; he may not even be thinking of you tonight—who knows what he’s doing? Maybe he’s not suffering, maybe he’s fine and having a good time.

My dear listeners, I know what he’s doing tonight: I came here to tell you. At this hour, he may be sitting around a table with his colleagues, on a big ship, or at an airfield, or at the office cafeteria. He, too, has eaten turkey and perhaps a bit of dessert, and some of the younger men have even tried to have some fun, some jokes, but they didn’t succeed. You can’t imagine the melancholy of a Christmas table at which only men are sitting. But then at a certain moment, impossible to say how, someone who has been married only a few months takes a photograph out of his wallet: Yes, it’s my wife. Oh, a tiny snapshot, from years ago, it’s not a good likeness. And so, gradually, it’s discovered that each one carries a photo in his wallet, and they show these now, anxiously, pleased to introduce them, but all saying: Honestly, it’s not a good picture. Then they put it back, beloved, slightly creased photo, so often held—but something remains of a female presence. They feel revived, as if they’d met; they think maybe tomorrow you’ll appear, somehow or other, like a Christmas present.

Tomorrow, however, we’ll still be far away. And yet I must tell you that when this hour is over we, here, will be feeling tranquil again. Besides, so many times we’ve said, “Oh, what I wouldn’t give for fascism to fall!” And now we have to give this, too, our solitary Christmas. If you think about it, it’s not so important. Other Christmases will come, and no one will be able to keep us from decorating the fir because it’s a foreign custom, as the fascists said; no one will be able to keep us from exchanging good wishes when we meet because it’s a bourgeois custom. We’ll be free, you understand? Free. And now the distance that divides us can’t keep us from feeling united, close, a single people, bound together, indissoluble, and, I would also say tonight, with a single expectation, a single hope. The important thing is that you’re listening to us, despite the persecution and the controls, and that we are moved when we hear the first notes of the Garibaldi hymn, when the battle begins, in our little trench. Afterward, you’ll turn off the radio; I will again cross the melancholy deserted city. That’s our Christmas this year. ♦

The radio addresses were translated from “È Una Donna Che vi Parla, Stasera,” by Alba de Céspedes.