Carla Capponi aka The Little English Girl (7 December 1918 – 24 November 2000) was an Italian partisan and politician who received the

Gold Medal of Military Valour The Gold Medal of Military Valor () is an Italian medal established on 21 May 1793 by King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia for deeds of outstanding gallantry in war by junior officers and soldiers. The face of the medal displayed the profile o ...

for her participation in the

Italian resistance movement The Italian Resistance ( ), or simply ''La'' , consisted of all the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social Republic during the Second World War in Italy ...

Biography

Youth

Carla Capponi grew up in Rome, where she was the eldest child. She attended the Ennio Quirino Visconti Liceo Ginnasio in the same class as

Carlo Lizzani Carlo Lizzani (3 April 1922 – 5 October 2013) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and critic. Biography Born in Rome, before World War II Lizzani worked as a scenarist on such films as Roberto Rossellini's '' Germany Year Zero'', ...

and Piero Della Seta, the future Communist city councillor Piero Della Seta. In 1940 her father who was a mining engineer died and the three sisters had to work, forcing Carla Capponi to abandon her studies of law. On 19 July 1943, immediately after the bombing of San Lorenzo, Carla rushed to the Policlinico Hospital in search of her mother and remained there as a volunteer; subsequently she allows clandestinely communist activists to gather in her apartment in front of the Trajan's Forum, including Gioacchino Gesmundo, Luciano Lusana, Adele Bei, Carla Angelini and Mario Leporatti. In one of these meetings she met Rosario Bentivegna, three years younger medical student; while in via Margutta instead, in the studio of the sculptor Nino Franchina, she met the activist Filiberto Sbardella (one of the leaders of the Red Flag).

Italian resistance

Around the time of the German occupation of Italy (1939–1945), she joined the

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party (, PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was established in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy (, PCd'I) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Part ...

and began her involvement in the resistance. A comrade in the struggle described her as "this young blonde woman who went out at night to shoot Germans... with arms in hand, first among the first, she participated in dozens of actions, distinguishing herself in a superb way." During the war, she was known as the "little English girl" (Inglesina). Among her first major actions was the assassination of a German officer leaving the Hotel Excelsior carrying a briefcase with defence plans for the city. Capponi described the action:

"It was a traumatic experience. I almost wanted to call to him, to make him turn around... but I knew he was armed. It seemed impossible that with my peaceful disposition, against any form of violence, I should hold the gun, point it at him and shoot him in the back. I took his briefcase. I was in shock... I began running down the street with the gun still in my hand... It was raining and tears were streaming down my face... After getting over the initial shock, especially since many of our comrades were being arrested and tortured, all our scruples were replaced by sheer determination to fight for our cause."

During the Via Rasella attack on 23 March 1944, she became a vice-commander of a Gruppi di Azione Patriottica (GAP; "Patriotic Action Groups") squad.

Post-war

On 22 September 1944, Capponi married Rosario Bentivegna, with whom she had fought in the resistance. In 1945, she gave birth to a daughter named Elena. The couple later divorced in 1974. In 1953 she was elected to the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...

as a member of the Italian Communist Party. She served two terms, from 1953 to 1958 and later from 1972 to 1976. A few months before her death she published the memoirs "Con cuore di donna". She also served on the executive committee of the National Association of Italian Partisans until her death in 2000. The body was cremated and initially buried at the Verano cemetery. In 2014, her daughter Elena (who died the following year, in 2015, at 69 years of age), not having obtained the opportunity to bury her parents together, in 80 centimetres of earth in the non-Catholic cemetery of Rome at

Testaccio Testaccio () is the 20th of Rome, Italy, identified by the initials R. XX, deriving its name from Monte Testaccio. It is located within the Municipio I. Its coat of arms depicts an amphora, referencing to the broken vessels that Monte Testaccio ...

, as desired by themselves, respected their will, as a second hypothesis, to have scattered their ashes in the Tiber river. Capponi was awarded the

. She was one of only sixteen Italian women to be given this honour.

Electoral history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Capponi, Carla 1918 births 2000 deaths Politicians from Rome Italian Communist Party politicians Deputies of Legislature II of Italy Deputies of Legislature VI of Italy Italian anti-fascists Italian resistance movement members Recipients of the Gold Medal of Military Valor Female anti-fascists Italian female partisans