Attilio Moneta 

I am Colonel Attilio Moneta, and if you want to know my story, I'll tell you more!  I was born in Malesco, in the Vigezzo Valley, in 1893. I was one of the rare senior officers in the Italian army who embraced the Resistance after the Armistice of 1943, when I headed the army's quadruped centre in Grosseto and until the end of my life I fought for the freedom of Ossola! I took part in the National Liberation Committee of Domodossola and I was among the plenipotentiaries who negotiated the surrender of the Nazi Presidium of Ossola in Trontano, in a tavern after the Mizzoccola bridge, on 9 September 1944, on the eve of the liberation of Domodossola. I was commander of the National Guard of the Ossola Free Zone and collaborator of the Provisional Government Council of Ossola until my death.

I lost my life on October 12 1944, in the last days of the Ossola Partisan Republic, in a bloody German ambush between Val Cannobina and Valle Vigezzo, near the location Sasso di Finero, with my friend Alfredo Di Dio, part of the Valtoce Partisan Division. So Alfredo and I decided to go down towards the Finero tunnel to see if the partisans of the Piave Division, on the run, had blown up the bridge at the end of the tunnel to delay the arrival of the enemies, which had in fact been blown up. At our side were my nephew Gioacchino Cerutti and George Paterson, a Canadian officer who had been parachuted into Ossola by the Allies. As we were returning to the car, left a little behind with other partisans, the Nazi-Fascists, perfectly camouflaged on the rocks, easily targeted us: a hell of a gunfight! Paterson and Cerutti were captured, but spared, perhaps because they were in military uniform, and they later managed to free themselves, while the other partisans fortunately escaped immediately. I, on the other hand, was shot in the forehead by a non-commissioned German officer of the 7th Company of the 15th SS Polizei Regiment, without being able to utter a word.  My friend Alfredo Di Dio was also mortally wounded, but if he had been rescued, he would have been saved.  I hoped for freedom and justice and paid for my dream with my life!