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I
had last seen Florence almost five years before. Then
the stifling heat was the same, and the hills were the
same. Even the timelessness was the same. But in that
week, five years before, the stage was being set for
the broken bridges and the guns in the hills. The radios
of Europe and the news tickers were jabbering with the
German threats to Poland and with the long speeches
of European statesmen.
In
America the stock market had been jumpy and the ticker
had fallen minutes behind, for it was August, the dangerous
month. In Florence we had heard the radio only dimly
through the heat, and somehow Florence had seemed outside
the stream of events, the hurry, and the insistence
of the voices. Three weeks later, September 1, 1939,
the German armies had crossed over into Poland.
It
was not easy now to identify an afternoon five years
before. In five years of war my mind had jumped too
rapidly from one place, or one event, to another, flicking
over names or countries, over innumerable battles and
incidents. For several days in Florence now, waiting
for the marshaling yards to be cleared of the enemy,
I had been trying to recall precisely how the city had
looked that week five years ago. But the broken bridges,
the shelling, the military vehicles, the tenseness of
the little Allied position on the north side of the
Arno had interfered.
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"Civilians
of Florence Murmured 'Americani' and Asked
a Thousand Questions"
The
author (left) and his pilot, Capt. Leonard
S Ackerman, who had been flying together
for a year were, in the words of the War
Department, "a perfect team and great
friends." In liberated Florence they
inspected rail yards they had bombed from
the air. Right: a Partisan's armband.
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Captain
Ackerman and I had been among the first handful of Americans
to come into Florence, and everywhere, as we walked
around the occupied section of the city and looked at
the famous buildings and the lovely streets, little
groups of civilians had applauded, had murmured "Americani,"
and had asked us a thousand questions. "Was Cassino
completely wrecked?" "How about Gaeta?
Is it possible to go back to Gaeta to live?"
Our
pockets were filled with odd scraps of paper on which
were written the names of sons and daughters and relatives
in America to whom we had promised to write that we
had seen mother or uncle or cousin in Florence, that
all was well, and that they were full of courage.
Once
a woman came up to us with a shy 16-year-old daughter
and told us in English that she had waited to speak
to the first Americans in Florence. She turned to the
daughter and took two almost wilted roses and handed
them to us.
"We
have been looking for Americans to give these to, and
you are the first. We are happy now."
It
was with a sense of deep embarrassment and responsibility
that we took the roses, for, if we had had a part in
the eventual liberation of Florence, we could not be
sure precisely to what we had liberated anyone. From
what we had liberated them we knew. But to what was
still a very searching question.
Perhaps
it was best that for the moment only we who were doing
the liberating knew how searching that question would
become with time.
Everywhere
we stopped to chat and, whenever we offered a cigarette,
the crowd increased. With deep grace and beautiful unself-consciousness
the crowd accepted our cigarettes until the pack ran
out. We got out another and that ran out, too. Here
there was none of the fawning disavowal of Mussolini,
none of the mendicant cursing of the Germans that we
had found in Sardinia. These people knew that we knew
how they felt and let the absurd past drop. For us it
was a relief. (Continued)
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