Interviewed by Hillary Moses Mohaupt
Suzanne Cope’s guide, Girls at Conflict: The Italian Assassins, Spies, and Couriers Who Fought the Nazis (Dutton; April 2025), offers readers a dramatic account of ladies in resistance throughout the Nazi occupation of Italy throughout World Conflict II. Whereas the title means that their efforts had been energetic and and sometimes violent — and positively a lot of it was — Suzanne additionally explores how girls gained political educations, created and sustained networks, and produced underground newspapers that stored partisans related and knowledgeable — all whereas defying gender stereotypes.
The guide focuses on 4 girls specifically, who symbolize lots of the methods through which girls throughout Italy participated in resistance: Carla Capponi made bombs in underground bunker and different secret areas throughout Rome, then carried them to their locations sporting lipstick and a trenchcoat; Bianca Guidetti Serra rode her bicycle up switchbacks within the Alps, dodging bullets whereas delivering baggage of clandestine newspapers, munitions, and different provides to the anti-Fascist armies hidden within the mountains; Teresa Mattei, the long run writer of Italy’s new structure, carried secret messages, hid bombs in Florence, and survived Nazi torture; and Anita Malavasi rejected a conventional married life to guide a whole bunch of partisan troops throughout tough terrain within the Apennine Mountains.
Drawing from the memoirs of those girls and different first-hand accounts of the individuals who labored alongside them, Suzanne ensures that ladies’s efforts to liberate Italy will not be forgotten or underestimated.
Suzanne Cope’s narrative nonfiction has been printed broadly, and he or she is an Affiliate professor at New York College. I spoke along with her from her residence in Brooklyn.
Hillary Moses Mohaupt: First, congratulations on this guide. You write within the epilogue about how what counts as resistance is evolving, each once we take into consideration World Conflict II and people occupations, and even now, as we speak about resistance as we speak. I’m excited to speak with you, partly as a result of that is such a well timed and essential guide in regards to the vital contributions of ladies preventing to guard and defend their communities in Italy.
You focus on this guide on 4 girls, and particularly in direction of the top, on two of those girls who come to the forefront, which permits the reader to know their struggle at a person stage. How did this guide come collectively, and the way did you determine to deal with these girls specifically?
Suzanne Cope: About eight years in the past, which isn’t a random time, I used to be doing a whole lot of work on meals research. Meals and tradition was my focus on the time, and I used to be trying round on the individuals I knew within the meals world, and I bear in mind pondering, “Okay, persons are sending pizza to protestors. Folks had been protesting one thing at JFK airport, and now I’m pondering it most likely had one thing to do with refugees, and different refugees who had been right here had been elevating cash and consciousness by cooking their residence meals for individuals.” And I assumed, “That is what resistance seems to be like within the meals world.”
However I had this sense that there needed to be one thing else that we might study from historical past. On the time I had a guide proposal with all these tales about meals as a device for social change. I ended up pivoting to put in writing Energy Hungry, which was written throughout the pandemic. For my subsequent guide, I knew we had been able to journey once more, and I’m Italian American, and so I shifted my focus to the Italian story in that meals proposal that didn’t go wherever. And I noticed by way of the work of Energy Hungry that it wasn’t a lot about meals. Meals was actually a manifestation of ladies’s work and feminized labor. Meals was highly effective in a whole lot of methods, like what you’re speaking about within the epilogue. I noticed whenever you’re taking a look at warfare, there’s not a whole lot of meals in warfare, and that story could be limiting. And these different tales are superb! So I used to be researching all of the tales, all the ladies who may very well be potential protagonists. And I couldn’t imagine I’d not heard of them.
Working with my agent I narrowed it down to those 4 girls as a result of they represented 4 totally different locations and in addition 4 totally different ways in which they had been preventing and dealing within the resistance. And in addition, as a author, you might want to have supply materials, so 4 individuals who both wrote a memoir, or they’d a whole lot of interviews or testimonies accessible. This stuff all got here collectively to have the ability to assist the writing of a guide. I do assume they symbolize these totally different elements of the story, to have the option for me to inform the story of ladies within the resistance extra broadly.
HMM: And you aren’t skilled as a historian, appropriate?
SC: I sort of get a kick when individuals confer with me as a historian, however you recognize what, I feel I’ve earned it by now.
HMM: It’s partly simply the observe of doing historical past!
SC: My PhD is in an interdisciplinary social science referred to as Grownup Studying, and it actually taught me social science analysis strategies: what historians use, what journalists use. I’m sort of a self-taught journalist and a self-taught historian, steeped in social science analysis.
HMM: So let’s speak just a little bit about analysis. Having a large breadth of analysis coaching offers you the leeway to do the analysis that must be executed with an strategy that works for the story, the narrative, and the story of those girls.
SC: I used to be on the lookout for first-person experiences, both written or spoken – I had some interviews – and that was what I needed to foreground, as a result of a part of my premise was that there’s a lot written about World Conflict II, and virtually none of it by or about girls. And what little of it’s about girls is finished by way of a scholarly lens. I actually needed their phrases and their representations of their experiences to be forefronted. As I mentioned within the introduction of this guide, I don’t purport that it is a historical past of warfare, and I’m consciously centering the tales of those girls. There have been occasions when the actual fact checker got here again and mentioned, “I can’t show this” or “how are you aware?” and my response was, “As a result of they mentioned so.” If there was one thing you might show occurred on one other date then I’d go together with the historic file, however that just about by no means occurred. For a few of these girls I used to be additionally taking a look at memoirs that had been written by totally different individuals who had been with them at totally different factors, so there have been occasions once I might examine in the event that they had been each in the identical place. However for essentially the most half, apart from some dates that I might confirm, if it was about how she was feeling or her interpretations of the day, I all the time went along with her story, over the story of the individual she was with. I’d layer their tales, however I’d by no means supercede her story with another person’s. I needed them to guide the narrative.
HMM: You had all these memoirs, different historic documentation, and these testimonies. The place are these testimonies?
SC: Carla wrote a memoir, which was nice and really detailed, which is why her story is so vivid. Anita was interviewed – I had hours of her verbal testimonies. I discovered her testimonies in three totally different locations. One was at an archive in Reggio. One other was on the College of Bologna, after which third was in a diary archive in the midst of nowhere Italy, this tiny city that I compelled my household to come back with me to they usually performed within the piazza whereas I did this analysis. It was fascinating, having heard her principally inform the identical story three totally different occasions, however every time, she added this element however not that one, so I used to be in a position to layer it so it felt just a little extra sturdy. And that was the one time I ever actually made up dialogue – she could be telling it not directly, “After which I advised him this,” and I simply advised it immediately. I attempted to not embody any element that wasn’t present in any testimony, with that uncommon exception, and I feel I’ve it in italics the only a few occasions that I created dialogue out of inferred dialogue.
HMM: You’re principally constellating these true tales and also you’re making them extra true, with extra layers.
SC: And that’s what was so enjoyable about this venture versus Energy Hungry. On this case I had much more data and I used to be in a position to make it much more narrative. That is the sort of guide that I like studying personally and I feel it is a bit more narrative than my final guide, extra dramatic.
HMM: It’s actually dramatic.
SC: It’s ruining me for my subsequent guide. I hold pondering, “Nobody’s taking pictures Nazis!” My writing group says, “You’re not all the time going to get to put in writing a guide about taking pictures Nazis.”
HMM: You talked just a little bit in regards to the totally different locations that these girls had been, and the way that actually formed the actions they took half in. I needed to pull up a map of Italy, as a result of I’m not that conversant in Italy’s geography, and it was neat to familiarize myself with the geography, which was so essential to the story, the warfare itself. Are you able to speak in regards to the totally different roles these girls had, and the ways in which the place they had been influenced what sorts of resistance actions they took half in?
SC: There was a lot that I assumed I knew – I’ve been to Italy a number of occasions and have been researching this for quite a lot of years, and there was a lot I didn’t know in regards to the historical past, which I feel is partially as a result of People actually like American historical past and there’s not a whole lot of People on this story. And so persons are sort of embarrassed to confess they didn’t know these items. I didn’t know them both; I didn’t understand to what extent Italy was beneath occupation till I used to be engaged on this guide.
I’ve been to Italy and brought trains between cities, and I didn’t understand to what extent mountains had been a lot part of their panorama. You’re in a prepare, and also you undergo a tunnel, and also you simply don’t give it some thought: you’re in a mountain. So definitely this dramatized all of that for me. I went a 12 months in the past March and I drove to a few of the identical locations that Bianca had gone within the Alps and it was so profound to be shifting towards them and to see them get larger and larger and larger, and understand how big they’re and to drive my automotive locations the place she rode her bicycle. It was so highly effective, how difficult that was, and he or she did it on a regular basis. Not even including the concern issue – who’s going to cease you, or the opportunity of being caught in a firefight. In order that was superb to appreciate how difficult her work was.
Anita was in Reggio Emilia, which is a small metropolis, however I went and adopted the paths that she took when she was within the mountains. They discovered the outdated paths and cleared them out and other people can take days-long hikes on the identical paths.
These two moments had been essentially the most superb of my analysis, the place I actually felt I used to be stepping of their footsteps. You’re within the mountains, they usually’re sleeping there and it’s winter and you may’t even mild a fireplace. That was so highly effective.
After which once I was in Rome, I pictured Carla hiding within the shadows. Rome is a type of locations the place historical past is layered on high of itself. On the web site of the Through Rosella assault there are nonetheless the pock marks. There was a acutely aware determination to not fill these in, to have them be a delicate reminder of the guerilla warfare in Rome.
HMM: My sense is that individuals are likely to romanticize the resistance, prior to now and positively once we speak about “resistance” sooner or later, like in Star Wars. However one of many issues that I appreciated about your guide is that there’s nothing romantic about their expertise of the resistance. These particulars of climbing by way of these paths, and sleeping within the chilly, and never altering your garments for 2 weeks. Not consuming. At one level Anita misplaced a lot weight that she bought to a checkpoint, and the guard had an image and mentioned, “Have you ever seen this lady?” And Anita thought to herself, “It’s an image of myself from a 12 months in the past! And also you don’t even acknowledge me!”
SC: I like Anita a lot, I simply assume she has a lot persona. I might see her – she would look so totally different from her candy little spherical face.
I don’t know in the event you bear in mind the scene the place Carla meets somebody who desires to be a part of the Resistance and saying just about every thing you simply mentioned – you’re sleeping on the chilly floor, you’re useless to your mom. That was the final scene that I wrote within the guide as a result of I discovered it after I’d handed within the manuscript. I simply thought it mentioned a lot, so I begged them to let me embody it someplace. I assumed it was actually profound, and in addition confirmed how a lot Carla had modified from the start, as a result of she had been sort of a trend plate. After which she simply completely went all in on the resistance.
HMM: There’s some level the place Carla kills a Nazi at gunpoint, and also you present her having this inner second of reflection the place she wonders “who has the warfare turned her into, and who would she be afterward ought to she make it out alive?” I might see that inner reflection in all 4 of the ladies. Are you able to speak extra about that, the motivation to participate in resistance to start with and the way that motivation modified over time?
SC: For these 4 girls, and I feel this was very typical for nearly everybody throughout Italy, significantly girls, they actually had little or no political schooling, political information. Teresa was the outlier as a result of her dad and mom had been so explicitly anti-Fascist. For essentially the most half, for the opposite three girls, their dad and mom didn’t educate them that in any manner as a result of it was so harmful. All of them, apart from Teresa who was already there, needed to come to this political schooling and resistance in their very own manner. Anita was most likely the least subtle of them, rising up first within the nation after which in a a lot smaller metropolis, however she nonetheless had this very clear conscience, and it wasn’t till the this girls’s group was created, that she realized that there was this bigger philosophy and concept that she was aside of.
I feel that’s so essential, even as we speak: political schooling is part of each resistance motion. Understanding why you’re doing one thing, understanding the philosophy that you simply don’t should invent your self – you might be part of one thing that’s bigger. And that was what was so highly effective about what was occurring in Italy – everybody of this age, of their early twenties, they solely knew life beneath Fascism, and Fascism did what it supposed to do, which was solely educate a complete technology what it needed them to know. So that they didn’t have an actual sense of revolution or historical past or girls’s company. Mussolini didn’t need them to know. The tradwife pattern now very a lot has its roots in Fascism. Girls are solely meant to be babymakers they usually shouldn’t be politically engaged. And in the event that they do something outdoors the norm they’re deviant.
And what’s fascinating is that these girls had been so underestimated due to this misogyny, that that’s really what allowed them to be so energetic within the warfare. I don’t need to say it was a superb factor, however it was a manner that they discovered their company. They needed to need to study extra on their very own, and that’s what made them significantly compelling characters to observe, as a result of definitely there have been others who did related issues however who weren’t as politically acutely aware. I feel it was that political consciousness that made them so courageous, and that made them into individuals who had been politically acutely aware for the remainder of their lives.
HM: Teresa and Carla had been each elected officers in a while, and Teresa helped write the brand new structure, proper?
SC: Sure!
HMM: Speak about placing your resistance values to work.
SC: And she or he wouldn’t have even been thirty on the time when she was doing that.
HMM: I used to be struck by the irony – I don’t know if it’s irony – however the way in which that males stored underestimating these girls allowed them to do the work they’d been doing and to do the work that males couldn’t do as a result of they’d have been caught or murdered.
SC: Discovering energy within the very ways in which you’re oppressed.
HMM: Precisely. In desirous about the lives that these girls lived after the warfare, what do you assume their legacy was? What can we study from them and their work?
SC: We might name them feminists as we speak. I don’t know if all 4 would have used that precise time period, however all of them actually fought for girls’s rights. I imagine this was a direct results of their company throughout the warfare and the political schooling they acquired, which taught them that ladies can manage, girls can have a political voice, girls ought to have all of those rights. I imagine that that could be a direct results of the warfare. The warfare amplified and sped issues up. The warfare actually taught a complete technology of organizers and this political company was so profound in such a comparatively brief period of time. They went from feeling virtually no political company to lower than two years later imagining this future the place they are often leaders on this realm. I feel we are able to all study from that: that is the ability of organizing, that is the ability of discovering your individual company. Once they understood what they had been able to, the distinction between girls’s lives, and everybody’s lives, beneath Mussolini, and life a pair years later, was actually huge.
What they had been doing in Italy was totally different than in different places, as a result of they had been preventing on two fronts – one historian says three fronts. They had been preventing a category warfare, and Facism vs. democracy, and naturally World Conflict II. And what they had been doing was imagining what they needed their future to be. They had been doing it by way of the press however they had been additionally doing it by way of these political studying circles. What’s so superb is that in these moments of disaster persons are not preventing to return to the established order, we are able to struggle for one thing higher and totally different. They used that company, that new reference to a gaggle of people that needed one thing higher, to actually think about a special future.
HMM: We’re not speaking about going again to the previous, we’re speaking about constructing a greater future.
SC: Sure!
HMM: Whenever you get to some extent that you’ve one thing that may be learn by another person, who’s your first reader?
SC: Two nice of us – Maria Luisa Tucker who has pivoted to engaged on actually nice podcasts currently, which is so nice as a result of it provides one other layer of understanding narrative. In podcasts you must describe in phrases what you’re seeing, and I feel that actually helps me do the identical factor on paper. And Sarah DiGregorio, who would name herself a medical journalist. Each girls inform these lesser-known tales of unsung heroes, and we share a political understanding, and a shared need to amplify tales of individuals whose tales will not be typically advised within the dominant narrative. They’re my first readers. And my husband. If I’ve a very sticky shorter piece, then I’ll ask him to learn one thing and can ask, “What do you need to know?” He’s a musician so he does take into consideration storytelling as nicely, and that is the sort of stuff he likes to learn.
HMM: Is there anything you need to share that I haven’t requested you about?
SC: I used to be desirous about what resonates with as we speak. There was a interval not too way back, within the final two months, the place I used to be feeling the identical dread that so many individuals have been echoing. What can we do, I don’t know what to do. I needed to remind myself, “Cope, you wrote two books about this! You understand what to do.” What did these individuals do in conditions much more dire, much more horrific? I reminded myself to look again at what these girls did, what the ladies in Energy Hungry did. They didn’t stroll right into a motion totally shaped, they shaped the motion step-by-step.
My intuition was to maintain connecting to the previous, however I wanted to attach with my neighborhood. And I’m blessed to have so many communities: my neighborhood backyard, my neighbor, my colleagues. And I simply related with some individuals and mentioned, “Hey, does anybody need to hop on a Zoom name and share your data?” We’re sharing data and feeling much less alone and we’ve joined different issues.
I’ve realized a lot from these girls, and I’ve realized that I can join with my neighborhood, I can study. And I used to be reminded that you simply don’t should do every thing and reply to every thing. What’s it that you simply’re good at? Who are you aware? You may simply stick along with your one factor. I stored wanting to have a look at the large image – Fascism – however, no, have a look at the little image, have a look at the non-public connections. I hope that individuals see how they’ll join and develop one thing one after the other.
HMM: And I feel that connects again with what you had been saying within the epilogue, too, about what we take into account to be the resistance. Sure, taking pictures Nazis, but additionally engaged on a neighborhood backyard, or feeding somebody who’s on the entrance strains. It’s all interconnected, and doing the one factor the place you’re is de facto highly effective.
SC: There’s a statistic that claims you want a number of individuals supporting these on the entrance line. Subsequently, these a number of persons are simply as essential as these on the entrance line. Nobody ought to really feel that they’re not doing sufficient, in the event that they’re supporting others who might be on the entrance line for no matter motive, and I feel individuals ought to use their relative privilege, if that’s one thing they’ll do, to be on the entrance line. Something that’s pushing the motion ahead, supporting the motion, is value it. That’s what these girls have taught us.
Meet the Contributor
Hillary Moses Mohaupt’s work has been printed in Barrelhouse, Brevity, Woman Science, Dogwood, The Rupture, Cut up/Lip, the Journal of the Historical past of Biology, and elsewhere. She lives in Delaware along with her household.
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