Interview with Alessandro Samorè

Interview with Alessandro Samorè

Alessandro Samorè recalls his early life in Milan, Domodossa, Portofino, and Santa Margherita Ligure. He also gives details of life in youth fascist organisations, playing with homemade fireworks, and attempts to assemble an improvised scuba gear. Alessandro describes his attempt to join the ranks of the Decima Flottiglia MAS while still underage, and recalls the first Milan bombings, detailing the aftermath of the July – August 1943 attacks, which were much more severe: disrupted rail and tram services; widespread destruction; ravaging fires; and inadequate anti-aircraft defence. He describes the fall of the Fascist regime and mentions the temporary evaluation which took place every day at dusk, when people moved away from central districts. Alessandro describes the atmosphere inside a private shelter in the basement, stressing his care-free attitude and lack of danger awareness, and describes some episodes which happened in the last stages of the war, including: black market; strafing; SS brutality; street killings; propaganda flyers; the bodies of Benito Mussolini and other top brass fascists being desecrated at Piazzale Loreto; and post-war revenges. He talks about the legitimacy of the bombings (seen as an unavoidable consequence of the state of war), stresses his fatalism, and claims to have no hatred for bomber crews.

2018-05-08

01:16:15 audio recording

This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.

ASamoreA180508

PSamoreA1801