Aurelia Benco (Trieste 1905-Duino 1995) was an anti-fascist, a politician, and a member of Parliament. Starting from unpublished documents, this essay aims to reconstruct a littleknown period in Benco’s life: her studies at the University of Bologna, her activism in the Communist Party, and her arrest in 1927. It is a time that profoundly marked her life, and it allows us to reflect on the forms of repression of political subversivism, and on the use of police sources for the study of women’s history.
