ABSTRACT
On 25 April 1945, the call by the National Liberation Committee for North Italy for a ‘general insurrection’ in the north was answered by hundreds of thousands of Italians who had not until then been active participants in the Resistance. The partisans came down from the hills and took over the towns as the Germans fled north and for a few days were mandated by the Allies to administer public affairs until military government could be established. For a few heady weeks it seemed to Italians and outsiders alike that Italy had indeed finally ‘worked its passage’ back into the fold of democratic nations forging their own destiny. It was easy to forget that, while a large minority had been involved in or at least supported the Resistance, the much larger majority had not.
