When the Germans Didn't Know How To Swim

By Elisabetta Sgarbi

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Racconti di resistenza durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale
(Tales of The Resistance during WWII)

Despite the final episode of Paisá, the 1946 film by Roberto Rossellini, and the stories by Giorgio Bassani, the Resistance was not very strong in the Province of Ferrara and the area known as the Polesine. One of the many reasons was that it was considered impossible on the plain and even more so in the area of the delta. But on the contrary, the plain and the canals generated a particular Resistance that, even here, was to have its martyrs and heroes; and here, too, it generated wounds and memories. By gathering episodes and first-hand testimonies from those who took part, historians have tried to reconstruct the traces of a Resistance that was perhaps less organized and coordinated but, in terms of quality and quantity, was unequivocal.
The liberation of the Municipality of Bondeno entirely by women; the cowardly assassination of Ludovico Ticchioni, a seventeen-year-old boy from Ferrara; Walter Feggi who hands over the details of the bed of the delta to the Allies; evidence from those who witnessed the Germans drowning thousands of people in the waters of the River Po: these are just a few of the facts brought back to memory through cinema and presented anew by historians who for years have been trying to reconstruct the events of those decisive months.