Women's Portraits

Ansalda Siroli

76 year-old woman, 2 sons and 3 grandchildren - elementary school leaving-certificate, UDI (Italian Women Union) official and city-councillor. Her mother, agricultural worker, is still alive and she's 103 years old.
She is very satisfied with her life, she wishes to preserve her health and to have something to live for.

Interview

The saddest memory of my childhood was the killing, in Argenta, the town where I lived, of 10 people in reprisal, because partisans had killed a German soldier (it was September 8th, 1943).
When I was 10, I had to evacuate the town with my family, I'll never forget the people I saw dying. Still nowadays, when I hear an aeroplane I feel scared. War stole my childhood.

A pleasant memory is the birth of my first son, it was May 1st, a day when I usually went to the comrades houses to give a red pink and the trade-union newspaper.

A difficult period of my life was when I needed to gain the elementary school leaving-certificate and I was included in a children class: I was a 40 year-old woman and it was frustrating.

I soon started to work, when I was 14 I worked in a rice-field but I had to stop because for health reasons. I remember the killing of Maria Margotti, a rice-picker killed by the police during a strike, it was 1949.

I took part of the first collective of Argenta farm-labourers, we were 1300. It was the period of my first experiences of work struggle and it started my militancy in UDI, an activity that I still hold nowadays.
I was a theatre enlivener with the young people of my town, I became the leader of a girls group inside my Communist Party department. We used to glean money to buy costumes. They were the farm-labour struggles to give me passion for politics.

At the time of Scelba's government it was forbidden to collect funds during the “Feste dell'Unità”(Communist Party Festivals), I did it on the sly while distributing leaflets, a policeman saw me and he denounced me. I was put on trial and condemned to 35 days of detention, the sentence was suspended. This event left me very embittered and disappointed for the behaviour of my party comrades, they left me alone to face the trial and I was unprepared, and also pregnant.

Even if I didn't have the opportunity of studying I managed to achieve what I wished in my life.
My family was too poor to send the children to school, my school and my social realization had been the political militancy.

I'm pleased with myself for how I grew up my children, two sons that often criticized me for my opinions, but when they need an advice they turn to me.
Family is very important for me, my mother had always helped me and she always lived with me and my family.

I remember when I was elected for the first time city councillor, the comrades didn't want to nominate a woman, finding the excuse that there were too many people from Argenta; but the person in charge for women's party stood out in my favour and I was nominated and then elected.

24 years ago I had a kidney transplant, a kidney that I still have and that luckily never caused me troubles. I go on in my militancy in UDI and I have a very intense social life.

It's always meaningful to believe in something, whatever the age is. I'd like to have a different Italy, I'd like wars do not exist anymore. I am afraid of death.

I positively consider my life, I gave a lot and I received a lot, most of all by the women I worked with. Today people don't dabble in politics with the same passion of the past.

I have two granddaughters and to them and to all young women I suggest to be protagonists of their future.

Gabriella Fabbri