L’Blue Ribbon Institute greets with joy and emotion the visit of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, in Civitella in Val di Chiana. The meeting is scheduled for Thursday 25 April, the anniversary of the Liberation of Italy, when the village will host the highest office of the state on a day aimed at keeping alive the memory of the dramatic massacre of 1944 and honoring the memory of the victims of the massacre . The day will offer a new opportunity in which the Istituto del Nastro Azzurro, a non-profit organization established in 1923 to represent those decorated for military valour, it will be able to pay homage to the collective contribution of the people of Civitella in Val di Chiana, Cornia and San Pancrazio during the fight against Nazi-fascism which earned the decoration of the Gold Medal for Civil Valor for the same Common. “He endured the cruel retaliation of the invading enemy with stoic courage”, reports the motivation for the decoration in Civitella in Val di Chiana, “undergoing the almost total destruction of his homes and the sacrifice of one hundred and fifty of his children, never bending in his faith in a better Italy ”.
The 25 April will represent the occasion in which the Blue Ribbon Institute will symbolically remember those decorated during the War of Liberation such as Provinces, Municipalities, Military Departments, women and men who, for individual and collective acts of valor, were awarded the highest recognition of the Italian state. Many of them lost their lives fighting heroically to affirm the foundations of freedom and democracy on which the Italian Republic was later founded and, precisely as testimony to this sacrifice, in 1984 the President of the Republic Sandro Pertini awarded the Gold Medal for Military Valor to the Province of Arezzo. President Mattarella’s visit, therefore, takes place precisely on the fortieth anniversary of this important decoration and will represent a reason to remember the freedom fighters and the civilian victims of the ruthless Nazi-fascist massacres and war, without any discrimination and distinction of faith, race or political ideology.
Among the victims of the Civitella massacre in Val di Chiana, for example, there was also a founding member of the Federation of the Blue Ribbon of Arezzo, lieutenant Dante Lammioni, who was awarded a bronze medal in 1917 for having been able to effectively and intelligently fulfill his duty as a liaison officer, providing important information on the enemy’s situation. Following the wounding and killing of his messengers, the officer went personally to the various commands and managed to survive the Great War, unfortunately later finding his death in his hometown during the dramatic massacre of 29 June 1944 .
«To the sacrifice and value of all the innocent victims – explains the cavalier Stefano Mangiavacchi, provincial president of the Blue Ribbon Institute – we want to pay homage on a glorious day for our homeland history such as April 25th. Their sacrifice cannot and will not be forgotten. The hope is that what happened will be a warning to all those who govern the world today so that they are able to resolve international disputes around a table and not with weapons. On Liberation Day, therefore, we rally behind the tricolor as a symbol of our national unity and our common destiny to strongly support a single cry: long live the Republic, long live Italy.”
