Page 155 - NONOSTANTE IL LUNGO TEMPO TRASCORSO…Le stragi nazifasciste nella guerra di liberazione 1943–1945

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They tried to keep these massacres con- On September 8th the Country plunged into
cealed, by burying or burning the victims. It is not despair and absolute chaos, with its leaders on
known whether as an intimate sense of shame the run. Many Italians, however, did not settle for
and dishonour, or to avoid a future justice, or, dishonour. They chose the path of redemption. A
again, to not awake further feelings of revolt moral and political redemption, which recovered
among the Italians. the values hidden and crushed by the dictatorship.
The abomination, for example, of the Marza- Freedom, instead of imposition. Brotherhood, in-
botto massacre - the largest ever committed in stead of racist hatred. Democracy, instead of op-
Italy - was followed by an equally shameful paral- pression. Humanity, instead of brutality. Justice,
lelism: fascist propaganda, in controlled and cen- instead of arbitrariness. Hope, instead of fear.
sored newspapers, denied the undeniable, trying The Resistance was thus born, a movement
to retract what had happened, defining the news that, in its multitude of people, motivations, ori-
of the massacre as false and ridiculing the wit- gins and idealistic drives, found its unity in the
nesses. need to put an end to Nazi-Fascist domination
It is necessary – today and in the future – to re- over our territory, in order to establish a new co-
member those massacres and those victims, and existence, founded on law and peace.
the national and regional initiatives that support it Father Davide Maria Turoldo wrote: "Among
are precious. Without memory, there is no future. the fallen of the Resistance there were many dif-
A long trail of blood paved Italy's path to Lib- ferent believers. Each had their own God, their
eration. The blood of martyrs who paid with their own creed, and they spoke different languages,
lives the terrible consequences of an unjust and and had different skin colours, and yet in freedom
deplorable war, fought alongside Adolf Hitler in the and human dignity they felt like brothers."
belief that Italy's greatness and influence would Veterans from the war and young enthusi-
have spread in a new global order. An order based asts, farmers and intellectuals, monarchists and
on racial domination, on the oppression or exter- republicans, joined to fight together, with weap-
mination of other populations. A brutal, despica- ons, against the oppressors and the invaders.
ble, but also vain ambition. Among them were men, women, youngsters, of
Totally subjugated to Hitler's imperialist Ger- every origin, of every age. They fought openly,
many, fascist Italy, which entered the conflict with- with courage, against a ferocious enemy, over-
out any respect for the soldiers sent to die, would whelming in numbers, weapons and training.
have had no escape. Luigi Salvatorelli precisely There was the heroic Resistance of about
underlined: "With its defeat it would have lost a lot, 600 thousand Italian soldiers who, after Sep-
with victory everything..." tember 8th, refused to serve the Republic of
Generations of young Italians, educated since Salò, that puppet regime established by Benito
childhood in the deadly cult of war and blind and Mussolini under the total control of Adolf Hitler.
absolute obedience, had been sent, in the name They were executed, as in Kefalonia and Corfu, or
of a supposed national superiority, to attack deported to German concentration camps. They
neighbouring nations: the "others’ motherlands" were defined as "military internees", to deny them
as Don Lorenzo Milani called them. even the status of war prisoners. Fifty thousand
The breaking point between the Italian peo- of them died in the detention camps in Germany,
ple and fascism took place during the disas- due to hardship and violence.
trous retreat from Russia, in the battlefields of There was the Resistance of the population,
El Alamein, in the brutal repressions carried out who spontaneously rebelled against episodes of
in Greece, in the Balkans, in Ethiopia, in the de- brutality and violence, writing pages of splendid
portations of Jews to extermination camps, in the civil heroism. There were courageous workers'
support for the Nazis in the suppression of the struggles, culminating in great strikes in the in-
civilians. dustries of the northern cities.
Salvatorelli wrote again about "a deep mor- Throughout the Peninsula, in the mountains
al crisis, a complete alienation from the regime, a and in the seaside areas, in those dramatic years,
disastrous collapse of Mussolini’s idol." the clandestine network of solidarity, of awaken-
Fascism had in fact uncovered its face, re- ing of consciousness and of a rediscovered hu-
vealing its truly brutal and inhuman features. As manity spontaneously activated.
the centenary of the assassination of Giacomo Thousands of men, women, believers, State
Matteotti reminds us. officials, workers, and bourgeois, risking their

STORIA GIUSTIZIA MEMORIA HISTORY JUSTICE MEMORY 155

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