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During this period there was also the experience of survival at its basic level. The roads had been blown up, the hydroelectric power station had been destroyed, the surrounding fields had been mined and the villagers were on their own. Money had no longer any value since there was nothing to buy. People reverted to barter. They exchanged one thing for another: potatoes for wheat, wheat for corn, corn for potatoes, tomatoes for wheat, one legume for another, flour for shoes, or any other exchange. Lucky were the families that had left a supply of food stuff or a small parcel of land which could still be cultivated without fear of mines. The little wheat or corn available had to be carried to the water powered mill which had been reactivated since the electric mill was no longer functional for lack of electricity. Oil lamps were the only source of light for about three years. Clothing and shoes were extremely scarce. People made do with old clothes for ever patched and with for ever repaired shoes. Some German boots and fatigue uniforms were bought, stolen or exchanged from the German soldiers as they retreated from the region. One of the rarest product at this time was salt. Its value was greater since it could make palatable any insipid and watery soup . It was also needed as a preservative for the little pork meat which had escaped from the raids of the German soldiers. There were also the seasonal fruit and berries which often satisfied the hunger of many people who furtively picked them in the countryside while trying to preserve a sense of pride. These were times when charity in so many forms was direct, primordial and vital. It

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was often done as an assumed moral obligation and sometimes perhaps even without love. But it was there. No one begged, some "borrowed", and we all survived.

The allied troops came in 1944. Their arrivals in the cities was characterized by huge activities and huge supplies. The first sign of allies in Fallo were the waves of planes in the sky, so many of them, going or returning from air missions. We never had seen so many planes. As the cities filled mostly with American and English troops, some of the men in Fallo went
back to work in the hotels which were now filled with allied officers. The lucky ones, mostly cooks and waiters, after years of severe scarcity, suddenly came in contact with the unbelievable and never seen abundance that came with the American troops.

American shoes, clothing, cigarettes, canned goods, and chocolate began to come back to Fallo from the cities (mostly Naples and some from Rome). These goods had been given, stolen, or purchased on the black market which flourished in the cities. Corruption flourished again. The flour given to villages by relief organizations, such as the UNRA,