Notes

In the late summer of 1943, when Italy changed sides in the Second World War, breaking with the Germans and joining the Allies, an Italian Resistance was born. Ada, Frida, Silvia and Bianca were four young Piedmontese women who joined the Resistance, living secretively in the mountains surrounding Turin. They were not alone. Between 1943 and 1945, as the Allies fought their way north against the German invaders and Mussolini's rump Fascist state, thousands of men and women throughout occupied Italy rose up and fought to liberate their country from the German invaders and their Fascist collaborators. What made the partisan war all the more extraordinary was the number of women in its ranks. The bloody civil war that ensued across the country pitted neighbour against neighbour, and brought out the best and worst in Italian society. The courage shown by the partisans was exemplary, and eventually bound them together as a coherent fighting force. But the death rattle of Mussolini's two decades of Fascist rule - with its corruption, greed and anti-Semitism - was unrelentingly violent and brutal. Drawing on a rich cache of previously untranslated sources, prize-winning historian Caroline Moorehead tells the little-known story of these four brave women as they fought for freedom against Fascism in all its forms - as Europe collapsed in smouldering ruins around them.