National Content: Italy
Bombing on Terni on October 14th, 1943
| Source | Valsenti Alvaro, 82 years old, witness |
| Event referred to | City Bombing during World War II |
| Technological characteristics | Type of file:video Extension: mpeg Characteristics 320X240 Dimension of the file:2,79 mb Availability proposed: Downloadable |
| Description of the source | Kind of source: Interview Origin of the source : Interview with a witness Language: Italian Copyright issues : Downloadable (as agreed with the witness) |
| Contextualisation of the source | Point of view of a young worker caught in the factory by a bombing without alarm: escape to the air-raid shelter, long permanency and then the exit. At that moment he could see his city damaged with a lot of dead and wounded people. As a sensible target was hit the railway station. |
| Interpretation of the source | He could not realize that war was still going on even after the Armistice among Italy and the Allied countries (September 8th, 1943), while people was already trying to rebuilt. Desperation for dead and wounded people and for the continuing destructions. |
| Original Contents | |
| Original Contents (English Translation) | There was a bombing without prior warning on October 14th, 1943. That day we had returned to the factory, began rebuilding the warehouses, fixed the machineries and people had started fixing their own homes and started going to work again when all of a sudden we heard the noise of the airplanes. We all went out on the street and started to count them: “one, two, three, four…” until we hear the hissing of the bombs falling on us. We thought: “How could this be happening? War is over, we signed an armistice…” As the bombs were falling we ran to hide in the furnace, trying to protect ourselves from the collapsing roof and other debris. An unexploded bomb sat in front of us, only 20 meters away. “What are we going to do? If this is one of these bombs with a delayed explosion?” We decided to run away from the factory while the bombs were still being dropped and hid in the shelter next to the St. Antony’s church. This shelter was fifteen to twenty meters deep. However, while we were going from the factory to the church many people fell dead on the streets, so many of them! On that day the bombs also hit the building of the government and the Bank of Italy. The store located in front of the building of the government had just reopened and sold shoes since the rest of the city was still empty and the stores were closed. That day dozens and dozens of women died there while shopping for a pair of shoes. We stayed in the shelter from 10:30 am until 2:00 PM. During this time we heard an explosion coming from the railway station. We thought that that too was one of the bombs from the air raid, but we later learned that it had been caused by the explosion of a mine carried by a military man traveling to town. Inside the shelter you could hear people crying, screaming, there were scared people, wounded people, bleeding, sometimes missing limbs… At one point we thought: “we cannot hear the airplanes anymore, maybe something is going to happen at the railway station now”. And that was exactly what happened. So we decided to go out. I had been evacuated to Borgo Rivo (which today is a part of Terni). I thought to myself: ”I am going to go by the station, cross it, avoid the main roads, this way it will be faster to get to Borgo Rivo”. But when I got to the station I saw something I cannot describe: the train that had been sitting there was full of passengers. The mines that had exploded finished those who were already badly wounded. Then, some trucks came to pick up all the dead people and I helped out, grabbing the dead bodies from their hands or their feet and put them on these vehicles. |