Behind Enemy Lines: The Untold Stories of Italy’s Female Warriors Who Sabotaged the Nazis
The book focuses on four women in particular, who represent many of the ways in which women across Italy participated in resistance: Carla Capponi made bombs in underground bunker and other secret locations across Rome, then carried them to their destinations wearing lipstick and a trenchcoat; Bianca Guidetti Serra rode her bicycle up switchbacks in the Alps, dodging bullets while delivering bags of clandestine newspapers, munitions, and other supplies to the anti-Fascist armies hidden in the mountains; Teresa Mattei, the future author of Italy’s new constitution, carried secret messages, hid bombs in Florence, and survived Nazi torture; and Anita Malavasi rejected a traditional married life to lead hundreds of partisan troops across difficult terrain in the Apennine Mountains.
