PAOLO DESANA AND THE CHOICE OF MILITARY INTERNMENT To deeply understand the figure of Paolo Desana, we must press the button, taking ourselves back much further than his days in politics. rewind It is necessary to return to September 8, 1943, when the war suddenly changed its face and 650,000 Italian soldiers found themselves facing an epochal decision: join the Nazi-fascist militias or choose not to. About 50,000 opted for the first option. Paolo Desana was one of the 600,000 that we remember today as , who said NO to the request to fight for the Italian Social Republic. A conscious refusal that Paolo repeated again and again: Andrea’s father was called to choose 27 times (!), each time with worse consequences but preferring the deprivations and insults of imprisonment to the betrayal of his values. Indeed, like others, he was held in various German internment camps, which differed in name from concentration camps only because of their imprisonment as military personnel, to whom, from time to time, a “get out of jail free” card was offered if only they had wanted to reconsider their choice (a choice that Jewish prisoners certainly never had). “IMI” (Italian Military Internees) This “choice” of the IMIs was not instinctive; it was a deeply moral position. The IMIs had an alternative: to collaborate and return to freedom. Or suffer hunger, cold, and the deprivations of the camps, with no certainty of seeing home again. That of the IMIs was a “resistance without arms,” but no less heroic for that: the conditions in the camps were brutal, at the limit of survival. Andrea told us a chilling detail: the capture of a mouse became a reason for celebration in the camp, an opportunity for a more abundant morsel besides potato peels. About 55,000 of these men died in the camps, and the toll rises to about 80,000 if we count those who died shortly after returning home due to the diseases contracted.