The Girls’ Factory by Ilaria Rossetti published by Bompiani: take note of this title, I recommend it.

I am again grateful to Monica: I read it thanks to her and I enjoyed it very much.

The Girls’ Factory stems from the author’s research into work-related deaths, but it is much more.

It is a historical fact that has literally been erased, it is the description of places that I recognise as familiar, and it also is a proof for the theory of the six degrees of separation.

But above all, it is a very well-written book.

My compliments to Ilaria Rossetti.

The Girls’ Factory was established in Bollate, during the First World War, to meet the need for weapons, bombs and munition to supply the front.

That is why ‘the girls:’ the only remaining workforce, particularly suited for their small hands.

You know I don’t like to reveal too much, but I would like to emphasise the importance of spreading the story of people who were used and then wiped out because the war machine could not stop, then and now.

It even goes so far as to raze it to the ground, leaving only furrows in the earth and in the hearts of those who lived, waiting for the memory to die out along with the lives of those who knew the facts.

That is why it is so important that we keep going on telling this and all equally uncomfortable stories.

The first was a storyteller of excellence: none other than Ernest Hemingway, whom fate brought from America to Castellazzo di Bollate in the wake of the factory explosion, recounted in the famous The first forty-nine stories. 

All that remains on the site, completely overgrown by trees, is an electrical cabin with a very impressive mural. 

Other characters in the book take the reader to Milan, following the route of the Seveso river, painting a journey through nature and time.

Have you ever heard stories of grandparents  your own or ‘acquired’?
Grandparents can become everybody’s grannies after all, am I wrong?

Is there a story to be handed down even in the place where you live?