Women's Portraits

Luana Vecchi

77 year-old woman, former trade unionist CGIL (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro – biggest trade union of Italy), leaving certificate awarded by a junior high school, married, 1 daughter. Satisfied with her life, for her future she wishes to go on in staying well and to have something to live for.

Interview

I remember my childhood just sometimes, I remember with more pleasure the period devoted to my experience in politics and trade union.

When I think to my childhood I live once again the war period; the aggressiveness of interrogations that fascists used to do at my place and to the neighbourhood. My brother's imprisonment, the deportations of antifascist friends and neighbours. The terror for the first bombing left me in aphasia for several days. The fear for my mother who was a partisan courier.

(I remember about) The antifascist pride of the little community in which I grew up (Borgo S. Luca), the determination of struggles for the civil rights led from people who were risking their life and a lot of them, they lost it, the life. The imprisonment of my brother. Moreover my house was the seat of an Italian Communist Party cell. All this was determining for my choice to follow the profession of trade unionist and my political activity.
When I was young I wanted to become a teacher and for that I entered the high school specialized in education, but the urgency of the political struggle prevailed and because of that I started to work as a volunteer for the Communist Party.
They were hard times anyway, economic sources were slim and it wasn't easy to realize our wishes. Anyway, that didn't keep me from realizing my ideas and my interests, because the activity in the party and in the trade union corresponded to my ideals. The support of my family of origin before, and then the one by my husband, gave strength to my choice and rewarded the fact that for the first years of work I wasn't paid.
My brother, who became Mayor of the city, was for me an important landmark.

My family had always been important, until the death of my parents three generations lived together, a real example of democracy, we overcame the unavoidable disputes with respect and dignity. My daughter then decided to live with her partner and my husband and I helped her buying an house for her.

I wished that my daughter followed humanities studies, but since she was a child she loved dancing and motor activity. We supported her choice and invested to create a sports club, that, as well as giving her the opportunity to cultivate her passion, became a meeting place for the young people of the neighbourhood. My daughter graduated in “motor activities” (ISEF – Physical Education High Institute) and she goes on also nowadays in dancing as an hobby and she works as an employee in public service.
I dedicated to my daughter all the time and cares I could, but I admit that her landmarks were the grandparents and her father.

A difficult period of my life was the lung disease of my daughter when she was a child.  The doctor accused me I didn't attend enough her and menaced to hospitalize her in a preventive sanatorium. In that moment I was following problematic trade disputes that I couldn't give up.
Altogether we decided to live for 3 months in the nursing institution on the bolognaise hills. With this mediation I could accomplish important trade disputes.

Between my 40s and 60s I went on in working with satisfaction for the trade union and I attended my mother who had a cardiovascular disease. My mother, despite of the disease, she persisted in working as a tailor for us and she was an example of how to take care of oneself and to respect the others. It was tiring to plan family care and work, I used to sleep very little. The effort was rewarded by the height of my political experience.

I think with pleasure to my past life. I now enjoy the energy and the competence I gained in the past.
The most difficult period was certainly the fascism and the war. The Liberation struggles, the terror for the bombings that obliged us to spend a lot of time in shelters. I saw carrying away the bodies of friends killed by the Germans.

In this period of my life I work as a volunteer in various institutions: UDI (Italian Women Union), ANPI (National Italian Partisan Association) and ASL, I live my life with a sense of continuity. My past is precious and feeds my look to future. It is a lot of time that I use internet and e-mail, tools that help me in my intense activity as a social volunteer.

In this moment I'm struggling against my breast cancer. This experience enlightens anyway the deepest sense of present and future.
I hope death will arrive as late as possible and surely I don't want an artificial life.

I'm really grateful for my life and intellectual honesty, ethics, family and active participation are still for me the most important values of my life.

I hope and wish for the future that the society will be characterized by forms of real active participation, that individual selfishness will weaken and that values of a more civic society will be established.

I suggest to new generations to have more understanding for the value of responsibility, rights do not exist without that.

Gabriella Fabbri