Leda, partisan and fighter
Azzalini, 100 years old, fought in the armed forces until the Liberation. «I suffered, I would do it all again». Mariska, her nom de guerre, was a squad leader on the Cansiglio plateau. Here's her story.
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Leda, partisan and fighter
di Jessica ChiaAzzalini, 100 years old, fought in the armed forces until the Liberation. «I suffered, I would do it all again». Mariska, her nom de guerre, was a squad leader on the Cansiglio plateau. Here's her story.
A young Leda Azzalini
«I'd do it all again. I'd do it twice as much. As long as it continues to serve future generations». Having just turned 18, after leaving a note for her family, Leda heads up to the mountains, to the Cansiglio plateau, between Veneto and Friuli, to join the Vittorio Veneto Brigade Group, which later merged into the Nino Nannetti Division. She «just wanted to lend a hand», but instead, as the only woman, she would become the squad leader of a group of men.
Leda wasn't a courier, but a fighter: «I did everything a soldier did». Her nom de guerre is «Mariska», and she will remain up there until the end of the war. Leda Azzalini welcomes the «Corriere» to her home in Fregona, on the slopes of the Cansiglio, where she lives alone. Having turned 100 in February (with best wishes from President Sergio Mattarella, with whom she spoke on the phone on April 25), and with only one functioning eye—this doesn't stop her from reading every evening—she is present in her memories.
She never wanted to give interviews about her story—which she told at rallies or in schools—but she agreed to do so with the newspaper on Via Solferino, to which she is attached: «My mother always read it; she was a simple woman but she understood everything and explained it to the family. I even bought it in Venezuela (where she would emigrate, ed.): it would arrive the next day».
Born on February 21, 1926, in the village of Vallorch, Leda is Cimbrian (an ethnic and linguistic minority of Germanic origin) and born into an early socialist family who worked wood in the mountains: «My father was a disabled man from 1915-18», she says, «he came back without a leg; they sawed it off in Germany because it was infected. They anesthetized him with a glass of wine. We also had deaths: stories of the war were always told in the house. I grew up with my father screaming in pain whenever the weather changed. For these reasons, too, I enlisted».
LEGGI ANCHEITALIAN VERSION: Leda Azzalini, partigiana e combattentedi Jessica Chia
After the Armistice, the first formations were formed in the area with former prisoners of war and «sbandati», as the draft dodgers were called. They were also helped by the priest of Montaner, Don Giuseppe Faè, who initially made the rectory available to them (the bell tower became a weapons depot). Also known as «Don Galera», after being denounced by two spies, he was arrested and sentenced to death. He survived by serving only a prison sentence; his sister Giovanna, however, was deported to Germany and never returned.
Leda's knowledge of the area allowed her to lead the partisans (these are the same mountains where journalist Tina Merlin served). The command base was located above Montaner, but due to the roundups, it split into several groups. «I did everything the men did», he recalls, «the guard, the inspections». When I arrived, the commander said: "You are my responsibility: maximum respect or you will be shot"».
Leda survived the Cansiglio roundup (the village of Vallorch was burned, and for ten days, hidden in the woods, she «nourished» herself with dew); she was saved at the Palantina roundup, hiding under a dwarf pine; and she almost died on the day of the Liberation of Vittorio Veneto, when Allied planes strafed a Wehrmacht armored column: «I was safe again. The last day of the war. But it was hard, you know... Even telling the story makes me nervous. When I still see news of conflicts on TV, I feel sick, I can't sleep at night. The war has stayed with me».
«We had the courage of youth, but we suffered, we were hungry, luckily there were couriers who brought us bread. You can't live in the mountains if you don't have the village behind you». Leda remembers the women's work in the Resistance, even though many firsthand witnesses remained silent for a long time, often out of modesty or shame. «Brutal violence was perpetrated. I would never have let myself be captured alive; I always had my gun ready because, before you die, do you know how many things they would have done to you? It gives me shivers just thinking about it. But I would have fought back. Why did I have to let myself be killed, because I'm a woman?»
«Mariska» was trained to use pistols and rifles, even though they were in short supply. They would begin arriving at the end of the war with the British missions: she would also witness the last parachute launch.
After the conflict, she decided to emigrate: «I didn't even know where Venezuela was, but I left alone. A three-month journey». In South America, where she would stay for 15 years, she learned about the birth of the Constitution («one of the most beautiful in the world, and now they're gnawing at it», she says).
She learned Spanish and French; She has an elementary school diploma, but continues to study (her granddaughter shows us her volumes of Kierkegaard), to inform herself: «I've always been curious about life». Leda is also a woman of the avant-garde: shorts, nail polish, in the early 1960s she returns from Venezuela with a convertible MG, which everyone in the area wants to see. But she doesn't like to talk about herself in these terms: it's her granddaughter who helps us reconstruct this part of her life. «I'm embarrassed», she reiterates.
Last summer, a woman entered the ANPI headquarters in Vittorio Veneto. She came from Australia and was seeking information about her father, who fought in the Anglo-American missions in Cansiglio. She was brought by Leda, who remembered an English soldier who had saved dozens of partisans from a roundup; they called him Beppo. That same Beppo, with whom Leda witnessed the final weapons launch on Mount Pizzoc, was Joseph Dickinson: the father of the woman who had arrived from Australia. Eighty years later, the history of those mountains—the history of our Liberation—is once again intertwined with Leda's life.
Biography
Leda Azzalini (Vallorch, Trevio, February 21, 1926) was a partisan fighting on the Cansiglio plateau (Belluno Prealps, between Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia) with the Vittorio Veneto Brigade Group, which later merged into the Nino Nannetti Division. At 18, she was placed in charge of a squad of men because she was familiar with the area. After the Liberation, she emigrated to Venezuela, where she remained for 15 years. After working in a variety of jobs, from serving families to working in a publishing house's printing press, she started a home-delivery milk business with her uncle and brother.
(Traduzione di Alfeo Zanette)
20 maggio 2026
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