the fall of 1944 to the summer of 1946. I was in Corleone when my maternal grandfather, Carmine Di Gironimo died in Fallo. During my previous summer visit to Fallo my grandfather, with whom I often had all types of conversations, predicted that he would die the following year. I dismissed this as unfounded and with the typical callousness of youth, but he was right. During the war, when my grandfather had retired and lived with us in Fallo I was very fond of him. We shared the hardships of these time. I shared his scarce tobacco leaves, which my mother used to buy for him on the black market, and which I stole from the suitcase in which he kept them. I shared the tobacco with my friends. We used to cut the tobacco leaves with a razor blade, roll them into cigarettes and smoke them in the fields. He had a great sense of humor. One evening at the kitchen table after supper he turned to my mother and said: "Elena, we must buy more tobacco, your son and I have finished it !". He was also a good story teller. I enjoyed the few times we sat alone by the fireplace when he used to describe life in Paris where he had worked at the very beginning of the century. I felt very sad when he when he passed away, especially because I was away in Sicily. I no longer had the maternal grandparents with whom I had lived.

I was in Corleone when Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were killed in Milano in 1945. I had grown up during the Fascist period and enjoyed many of the youth programs sponsored by the government.