The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella arrived at the park of the Resistance in Cuneo for the celebrations of April 25 accompanied by the Minister of Defense Crosetto and the Chief of Defense Staff Giuseppe Cavo Dragone. The president placed a laurel wreath on the monument by the sculptor Umberto Mastroianni in memory of the Resistance, pausing for a moment of reflection.
“If you want to go on pilgrimage, to the place where our Constitution was born, go to the mountains where the partisans fell, to the prisons where they were imprisoned, to the fields where they were hanged, wherever an Italian died, to redeem freedom and dignity: go there, young people, in thought, because our Constitution was born there”. It is Piero Calamandrei who addresses these words to a group of young students at the Humane Society, in Milan, in 1955″. President Sergio Mattarella said this speaking from Cuneo on the occasion of 25 April.
April 25, Mattarella at the Cuneo Resistance park
“And it is here then, in Cuneo, in the land of the 34 gold medals for military valor and of the 174 silver medals, of the 228 bronze medals for the Resistance. The land of the twelve thousand partisans, of the two thousand killed in combat and of the two thousand six hundred victims of the Nazi-fascist massacres. It is here that the Republic today celebrates its roots, celebrates Liberation Day,” said Mattarella.
“The Resistance was above all a moral revolt of patriots against fascism for national redemption. A popular movement that involved the older generation of anti-fascists”, said the president.
“The list of places affected in the Cuneo area composes a painful litany and sounds like a prayer. I want to remember them. They were decorated with gold, silver or bronze medals, or with war crosses: Cuneo, the entire Province, Alba , Boves, Borgo San Dalmazzo, Dronero; Clavesana, Peveragno, Cherasco, Busca, Costigliole Saluzzo, Genòla, Trinità, Venasca, Ceva, Pamparato; Mondovì, Priola, Castellino Tanaro, Garessio, Roburent, Paesana, Narzòle, Rossana, Savigliano; Barge , San Damiano Macra, Villanova Mondovì. The Republic bows to the memory of the victims and the suffering of the inhabitants”, said Mattarella.
“The country’s crisis required a decisive moment, for a new idea of community, after the failure of the previous one. It was a question of transfusing the authentic soul of the nation into the State. To give life to a new Italy. Commitment and promise made in these 75 years of the Republican Constitution. A Republic founded on the Constitution, daughter of the anti-fascist struggle”.
“Hard was the struggle to ensure Italy’s survival in the catastrophe to which fascism had led it. Soldiers from other countries helped us, who became friends and solid allies: many of them are buried in Italy”, said the president.
“As the plaque affixed to the Town Hall of this city states, on the eighth anniversary of the killing of Galimberti, if ever opponents of freedom were to reappear on these streets they would find patriots. As it says: “dead and alive with the same commitment, people locked around to the monument that is now and always called Resistance”, said the president.
April 25, Mattarella at the Altare della Patria lays the crown on the Unknown Soldier
At the end of the April 25 ceremony, the President of the Republic Mattarella, flanked by Defense Minister Crosetto, received military honors again and once again listened to the national anthem. Subsequently, President Mattarella greeted Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa, the Speaker of the Chamber Lorenzo Fontana and the President of the Constitutional Court Silvana Sciarra with a handshake, pausing for a brief exchange of words at the foot of the ‘Altar of the Fatherland. The head of state has left Piazza Venezia. He is then expected in Piedmont for the celebrations of the 78th anniversary of the Liberation.
“There is an effort every day by everyone to unite because April 25th is everyone’s day, there have been no political differences, no differences of religion, truly no distinction in those who have chosen to sacrifice their lives in those days to give us freedom. Let’s find this value of unity, let’s make sure that there is no one who takes possession of it from one side or the other, there is no nostalgia. It is about the courage and the absolute value of anti-fascism undeniably recognized by all of us”. Thus the president of the Jewish Community of Rome Ruth Dureghello regarding the letter from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on April 25 to Corriere della Sera.
Source: Ansa
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