Elena Curti, the last natural daughter of Mussolini, dies

  She witnessed the chaotic and mysterious moments of Benito Mussolini's arrest on April 27, 1945 during Dongo's escape.

She was sitting next to the Duce in the armored car before he moved into the German truck where he was intercepted and blocked.

It was his daughter.

Elena Curti, natural daughter of Mussolini, died at almost 100 years old in her home in Acquapendente (Viterbo), she would have celebrated them on 19 October, eight days before the centenary of the March on Rome.

She discovered that she was the daughter of the dictator only when she turned 18, before then her mother Angela Cucciati, a Milanese seamstress with whom Mussolini had an affair at the end of 1921 when the Duce was 38 years old and was director of the '' Popolo d'Italia '' ', he had kept it hidden from him. Cucciati and the Duce met when the woman went to ask him for help in getting her husband Bruno Curti out of prison for political reasons. Mussolini had five children: Edda, Vittorio, Bruno, Romano, Anna Maria from the marriage with Rachele, but other 'secrets'. Many books have been written on this, all also mention Elena Curti, although to what is known never recognized (the only one was Benito Albino, as reported a few years ago by Antonio Spinosa in the Sons of the Duce),but Mussolini wanted to meet her and during the Social Republic he received her every Thursday in Salò. Elena worked in Pavolini's secretariat.

Claretta Petacci was convinced that that blonde girl was her adventure and ordered her to be removed. On April 27, 1945, during Dongo's escape, she was the '' blonde girl '' that the partisans found in the armored car in which the Duce was traveling at the time of his capture. Petacci was in another car with her brother Marcello and when he saw her he yelled at her. The scene was remembered by Pasquale Squitieri in his film 'Claretta' (1984). He spent five months in prison and then emigrated to Spain to rebuild his existence, having luck with a company that produced furniture. She returned to Italy about twenty years ago and on more than one occasion she intervened on TV or in the media to reconstruct her story and above all the dramatic hours of Dongo. He also wrote a memoir: 'The Three-Pointed Nail '(2003).