[5] Bandiera was born in 1915 in a well-off Bolognese family; her father Angelo was in construction, and became anti-fascist during the dictatorship; her mother was Argentina Manferrati, and she had a sister, Nastia.
[6] Following the armistice, Bandiera's boyfriend, a soldier, was taken prisoner by the Germans in Crete after 8 September 1943, and was lost at sea after the ship he was on was bombed and sunk off the port of Piraeus.
Irma joined the Resistance, at the time very active in the Bolognese plain, with the name of battle "Mimma" in the VII GAP brigade, Gianni Garibaldi of Bologna.
[6] While her family was looking for her in prisons and barracks, Bandiera was tortured for a week by the fascists of the Special Autonomous Company, led by Captain Renato Tartarotti,[7] who blinded her, but Irma resisted without speaking, thus saving her fellow partisans.
[6] The Bolognese federation of the Italian Communist Party on 4 September 1944 circulated a clandestine paper in which they recalled the patriotic sense of Bandiera's sacrifice, calling on people to intensify the partisan struggle for liberation from Nazism and fascism.
A SAP brigade (Patriotic Action Team) operating in the northern suburbs of Bologna was also named after her, as well as a Women's Defense Group.
[13] The association CHEAP Street Poster Art and the duo of street artists of Orticanoodles (pseudonym of duo of Italian artists composed of Wally (born in Carrara) and Alita (born in Milan),[14] chose for this the facade of the Bombicci, the school that claims a "democratic and anti-fascist vocation" purpose, and also to express how Bandiera was a national heroine and also daughter of the same district.