Affection for Ravosa: Recollections of Ravosa Times during World War II
Church and Church Square in Ravosa, 1950s
While in Mexico, around 1962, Franco Colautti decided to write to the Mayor of Povoletto, whom he believed he did not know, asking if he could purchase a farm in the area. During the Second World War, the area around the Udine railway station had been heavily bombed by American forces attempting to disrupt supply lines between German troops in Italy and Germany.
As a teenager of about fifteen, Franco was sent to Ravosa to stay with distant relatives to escape the bombing. From that period onward, he developed a lasting affection for Ravosa and, in particular, for La Faula, where he had spent many hours. It later emerged that one of the two properties available for sale was La Faula, and he discovered that the Mayor of Povoletto at that time was in fact a childhood friend.
Early 1944: Reprisals and Roundups
At the beginning of 1944, German/Fascist reprisals escalated against intense partisan activity in and around Attimis, Faedis, Nimis, Ravosa, Torlano and other villages near the Yugoslav border. Villagers considered supporters or suppliers of the partisans were rounded up, imprisoned and deported to German labor camps.
On the day soldiers arrived in today’s Via Arivada in Ravosa, several men hid in tunnels carved into the hay piled in the lofts above the stalls, while women and children feigned normal chores, hearts pounding. Seated on a stone step, Franco distracted himself by mentally comparing the sheen of the soldiers’ brass/copper bullets with the copper buckets (cialdirs, in Friulian) used to draw water from the spring and the copper ladle (cop) from which it was drunk.
The soldiers ordered the three daughters of Gnane Pine, matriarch of the household, to gather in the church square where other prisoners awaited transport by Wehrmacht trucks to German labor camps. Among those detained were Gin and his wife, and Enzo Ballico (born in 1927). Gin had only recently been returned from a German camp due to serious illness. Thanks to his pleading in poor German and, above all, the decisive intervention of the village priest Santin, the women and the ailing Gin were released.
WWII Bullet Shells found at La Faula
Wehrmacht Swiss-made Berna Truck used in Italian Operations till 1945
Wehrmacht Soldier Talking to Officers in a BMW Sidecar Motorcycle
The Escape of Enzo Ballico
Taking advantage of the confusion in front of the church—amplified by the arrival of a side-car motorcycle carrying officers—young Enzo Ballico seized a fleeting chance and sprinted across the fields to freedom. His daring escape soon became village lore. Enzo later worked as a land surveyor and draughtsman and ultimately served as Mayor of Povoletto for 17 years until the early 1970s (the same Mayor to whom Franco would write from Mexico).
While Enzo fled, Gnane Pine (“Auntie Pine”) prepared lunch for the soldiers who had approached from behind the house. They were Austrians and seemed decent people, Catholics too; with gestures they indicated that the Virgin Mary depicted in the kitchen picture was the same to whom they were devoted. Incredibly, two men, Giovan and Titi, hidden among the branches of a mulberry tree along the field, remained visible yet unnoticed—and thus were not arrested nor deported.
Enzo Ballico in the 1960s
Enzo Ballico with Daughter Flavia at La Faula in 1968
Franco’s Childhood in Wartime
Franco was born in 1929. During the war he often left Chiavris (Udine) to stay with relatives in Ravosa (the Fattori family). Because bombings frequently closed the schools, he spent long periods there. To reach Ravosa—about 12 km—he and his grandmother Domenica (“Meneghina”, born 1875) would hitch rides on horse-drawn carts carrying produce.
Like many villagers he frequented La Faula and the Malina River; in the summer boys would spy, amused and curious, on women washing in its waters. In 1944, at La Faula, Franco encountered two tall Austrian SS officers interrogating the Basso women (the men had fled) about possible Osovani partisan incursions. He recalls at least one officer wearing a long black greatcoat with the red SS armband.
Halfway up the hill stood a bressane (mist-net bird trap) overlooking the house, about 300 meters away as the crow flies; its hide, originally for the bird catcher, was used by partisans to observe the plain, attracting German attention. The hill of La Faula was at times used by partisans to ambush German convoys on the roads below; in response German troops set up a machine-gun post in the Ravosa church bell tower. Miranda Basso remembered a firefight in the belltower when the women of La Faula ran up the creek behind the house as bullets struck the ground around them.
As German pressure grew, the partisans withdrew to safer areas on the Zuffine pre-alpine range behind La Faula. One of the Basso brothers, Giovanni, was arrested and deported to Germany for passing smoking tobacco to a partisan sentinel hiding in the bressana—he survived and returned after the war.
Franco Colautti, aged three, with his Grandfather
Franco's Grandmother Domenica and Grandfather Giobatta “Tite”
Chestnut Picking near Partistagno
Another memory refers to the chestnut grove inherited by Auntie Pine near the Castle of Partistagno, at least an hour on foot from Ravosa. Picking lasted three to four days and was done by daughters Reginute and Milie (the same two rounded up at the church), her daughter-in-law Giulie (whose husband, an Alpino, fought on the Yugoslav front), and the two 15-year-olds, Pierin and Franco. The woodland—like for centuries—was perfectly tended; even fallen leaves were raked to replace straw bedding in cow stalls.
They left at sunrise, picked until noon (by the sun or the bells from Racchiuso if the wind carried the sound), ate a frugal lunch—perhaps polenta with muset or latteria—and by three started back toward Ravosa to attend evening chores. Chestnuts were vital: eaten in soups, ground into flour, or roasted.
Chestnut grove area (archival view)
Partistagno Castle and Chestnut Woodlands Viewed from Attimis (pre 1944–45)
Armoured Train and the Dash Home
During one of those pickings, shells from a German armoured train on the main line between Udine and Germany—at least 10 km away—passed repeatedly overhead, likely aimed at routes toward today’s Slovenia (Bovec/Plezzo, Kobarid/Caporetto). Each time a shell roared by, the pickers lay flat on the lunch blanket, hoping to be spared. Franco clearly remembers a partisan patrol appearing from the woods, walking in silence before disappearing northward among the trees.
They quickly loaded chestnuts into bags of woven corn husks (scus) and hurried home. On arrival, grandparents—the Sior and the Siore—welcomed them with “Beade l’ore, beade l’ore” (“blessed this hour”). Yet chores remained: cows to milk, pigs to feed, polenta to cook. After dinner came the Rosary and tears for sons and brothers at war with no news for months. Before bed, a few chestnuts with Clinto or Americano wine, then deep sleep on a mattress of scuss (maize husks)—until dawn when the Sior woke everyone: “Bulgars jevâit…”, time to rise for hot polenta and another day’s work.
Wehrmacht Armoured Train
Wehrmacht Armoured Train in Action
Additional Notes & Images
Church and Church Square in Ravosa, 1950s