Liberation Day represents a fundamental piece in the history of the Italian people. Every year, on the date of 25 April, the principles of freedom and equality are celebrated and the men and women who courageously fought against the Nazi and fascist regime during the Second World War are remembered. A symbol of freedom and resilience celebrated through institutional ceremonies and cultural and outdoor events. Ravenna too it preserves important stories and places linked to the liberation from the Nazi-fascist regimeincluding those we remember today.
The firefighters massacred in via dei Francesi
In Via dei Francesi a plaque commemorates three firefighters of the 69th Corps of Ravenna who died in the last months of the conflict. The Fire Brigade had withdrawn to decentralized and peripheral locations both to avoid Allied bombing and to hide vehicles and equipment from the Germans that the occupiers were trying to requisition. Some of these intrepid men, who collaborated with the partisan base of the “Terzo Lori” Detachment of Valle, sending food, weapons and news, were surprised by the Germans on 19 November 1944.
The three arrested men were taken to Vicolo dei Francesi at the German command. Here they were barbarously massacred at dawn the next day and their bodies were found in an explosion hole only later. Two of them were regularly classified as firefighters: Otello Molducci 33 years old ed Ezio Rambaldi 30 years old, both fathers of families. The third man was Renato Melandri, a friend of Rambaldi who had abandoned the army after 8 September 1943 and voluntarily collaborated with the firefighters in times of need.
Three workers murdered in honor of the squad member Tabanelli
Three workers of the Black Brigade of Ravenna were shot in via Belvedere at dawn on 31 July 1944. Their death was due to the reprisal of the comrades of Primo Tabanelli, one of the most hated squadristi of Ravenna, killed by a partisan Gap.
To avenge his death, his friends launched a raid on July 30th around midday. The three workers on break were taken to prison; they were Francesco Zoli, 45 year old cart driver originally from Piangipane, Leonello Corniola 35 years old and Ildo Melandri 31 years old, both from Lugo. After a night in prison they were murdered the day after their arrest, in front of Tabanelli’s house. Their fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The monument to Mario Pasi and Primo Sarti
Not only local resistance but among the places of remembrance in Ravenna also a monument for two brave men who died far from home, remembered with the bronze busts, by the sculptor Angelo Biancini. The busts have been positioned under the loggia of the Guido Novello Middle School since 1964. They are Mario Pasi in Trentino in 1945 and the Second Lieutenant of the Navy Primo Sarti in the Tyrrhenian Sea in April 1944.
Mario Pasi he worked as a doctor from 1938 to 1943 at the S. Chiara Hospital in Trento, also with the qualification of Lieutenant Colonel of the Alpini, amidst the esteem of his colleagues and the affection of his patients. But when he took on the role of secretary of the Communist Federation of Trentino and brought out the first clandestine anti-fascist newspapers, he felt he had to leave his medical commitment to move on to the armed struggle in the mountains of Belluno, where he was political commissioner of a group affiliated with the Garibaldi “Nannetti” Brigade. Captured for an informant in December 1944, after heroically facing months of horrible torture, he was hanged by the German SS in Bosco dei Castagni (BL) on 10 March 1945.
Primo Sarti he was a naval officer who had already earned a Silver and a Bronze medal at the VM during the conflict, reaching the rank of Lieutenant and Commander of the motor ship Umanitas. After the armistice he was stationed at the Maddalena base when in April 1944 he was sent to deliver MAS 505 to the French Navy in Corsica. But some sailors, who remained faithful to fascism, mutinied, killing the captain and a second lieutenant before clashing with Primo Sarti who fought against them until his death to avoid handing over the boat to the Germans.
The massacre at the Allocchi bridge
On 18 August 1944 the young Gappista Umberto Riccinicknamed Napoleon, had waited on that bridge for the passage of Leonida Bedeschi, a ferocious black brigadier nicknamed Cattiviria, Ricci on that occasion shot and killed him, but immediately afterwards, he was arrested by the Germans who handed him over to the Black Brigade “Ettore Muti ” who took brutal revenge.
On 25 August 1944, at the then Ponte degli Allocchi, now Ponte dei Martiri, twelve partisans and patriots were killed. In retaliation, Augusto Graziani, Domenico Di Janni, Michele Pascoli, Raniero Ranieri, Aristodemo Sangiorgi, Valsano Sirilli, Edmondo Toschi, Giordano Valicelli, Pietro Zotti, Mario Montanari were shot, while Umberto Ricci and Natalina Vacchi were hanged. The first was awarded the Silver Medal for Military Valor and the second the Bronze Medal.
In that place, at the crossroads between via Nullo Baldini, via Piave and via Mura di Porta Gaza, since 1980 there has been the monumental complex “Ponte dei Martiri – homage to the Resistance in Ravenna”, created by the sculptor Giò Pomodoro.
The announcement of the liberation in Piazza del Popolo
The liberation of Ravenna came with the cold winter: the 4 December 1944 in Piazza del Popolo the liberation was officially announced with the arrival of the British and Canadian troops around 2.30 pm followed by the partisans of the 28th Garibaldi Brigade, with German prisoners in tow. It was precisely following the Liberation that the square was given its current name, in fact before then it was called Piazza del Pubblico, del Comune or Piazza Maggiore, and at the time of fascism and war it was called Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II.
