Critical Interpretation of the event starting form the Sources

The sources, all in agreement in the way they represent how the civilians experienced the bombings, allow a critical interpretation of the event. This interpretation could be three-faceted, where all three facts are interconnected. The first one concerns the civilians: for them the military dimension was only marginal, while the individual and the collective one regarding the overall destruction and death, and the pain associated with the evacuations following the bombings was of primary importance. The second facet concerns the memory which recounts the event the way they were experienced and then how they were re-elaborated 50 years later. Without a doubt the personal experience of the interviewees is central and persists throughout their lives. Some of them, still today, suffer from the psychological consequences of the bombings. The trauma was so deep that it amplified the meaning of the bombings. The oral sources, in line with the popular tradition, report 110 bombings over the city of Terni. However, more recent studies show that the air raids over Terni were only 57. Therefore, the “grandiosity” of the event doubled its meaning, summarizing the experience of the war. The third and last facet concerns the problem associated with the idea of “liberation”. As told by one of the interviews, at the time of the bombings of the factory, those who were coming to free the Italians from the Germans and the fascists appeared as the ones who were spreading terror, death and pain: “I hate the Americans who bombed me, even if they say they freed us, ... not according to me!” Among the bombings over Terni, the first one was probably the worst one: 500 dead, 493 wounded and 500 missing, later on considered dead; half of the buildings in the centre of town were destroyed or severely damaged and more than two thirds of the population left town.