[RERUN] EPISODE 68: My Grandma and Her Bombs: A Story of WWII

History on Fire

Daniele Bolelli

Society & Culture

4.8 • 5.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2024

⏱️ 109 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is a tale of Italian Resistance during WW II. Unlike nearly all History on Fire episodes, this is not a story I researched in books. It’s a much more personal one—these are my grandparents’ experiences. The starring role goes to my grandmother, Liana Germani, who as a teenager was a combat partisan active against the Fascist regime and the Nazi occupation. What I remember of her... there was a constant hint of sadness and pessimism hanging around her. It may have to do with the fact that during WW II, she found her boyfriend murdered--cut into pieces by fascists. She spent the rest of her teenage years smuggling guns & bombs, and doing what she could to kill them all.

Honorable mention also to my paternal grandparents—in particular my grandfather Stelio Bolelli, who found his way into fighting alongside Allied troops all the way through the Gothic Line.

In the course of this episode we’ll talk about a brief history of Fascism, DMX & the Matteotti murder, the collusion between fascist leaders and Sinclair Oil, the Badoglio government, the Nazi occupation, the massacre of St. Anna di Stazzema, guerrilla in the streets of Milan, gender roles in fascist Italy, my grandma’s friends being executed, PTSD, carrying bombs & smuggling weapons, my grandfather avoiding execution, the Gorla massacre, and much, much more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to episode 68 of History on Fire.
0:04.0	This is one of those episodes that I recorded a while back
0:08.0	but has always been behind a paywall until now,
0:11.0	so this is the very first time that it's widely released to a larger audience.
0:17.6	It's a very personal one, you Lear Why, it's one that I care a lot about, so I'm rather excited to present this to you
0:25.1	But before we get down to business a couple of things. I'm trying to explore options to make history on fire sustainable that don't rely on paywalls, that don't rely on ads, since ads are
0:38.7	notoriously unreliable and it's usually not enough to keep the show going.
0:44.0	So until I can figure something else out, it's really your support is what's keeping the show going.
0:50.0	Couple of ways that people do that, they either subscribe on Patreon or on sub-stack.
0:57.0	Either one is fine.
0:58.0	I publish more or less the same content in both places.
1:02.0	Five dollars a month is all that's needed to keep the show going if enough people do it.
1:08.2	So some people, especially on Petron, they donate at a higher level. I want to give a shout out to some folks who are ridiculously
1:15.8	generals such as Mark Chang, Chimim-Moxam, Justin Bourne, Julian Bailey, and Ljubas, Zereva. You guys are fantastic, but even those folks who are more
1:27.1	wise with their finances and stick to the five dollar level, you helped me so much, I can't even begin to tell you. So if you want to join
1:35.6	this brave band of heroes check them out at either patreon.com forward slash
1:40.6	history on fire or I have a substock that you can also find online if you Google my name and check
1:48.6	substock. I've recently been published essays about my recent trip to Japan and all the history that I got to witness out there.
1:58.0	Incredible experience, I can't even tell you how amazing it was. I published a few videos on YouTube about that as well
2:06.0	so there's plenty of stuff out there for you guys to check out if you are in the mode for it.
2:12.2	Before starting the episode a couple of quick shoutouts,
2:15.0	one to Dakota PureBison.com.
	...

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