History – The memory on the occasion of the seventy-ninth anniversary of the Liberation from Nazi-fascism by Emanuel Alison Flamini
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| Resistence The partisan Mariano Buratti |
Viterbo – We receive and publish – On the seventy-ninth anniversary of the Liberation from Nazi-fascism our thoughts turn to the Viterbo Resistance and to the memory of Mariano Buratti originally from Bassano Romano, teacher of the Umberto I high school in Viterbo, soldier of the financial police, partisan with medal of ‘gold for military valor to Memory. Buratti had as an innate gift the vocation for freedom and justice already developed in his traumatic experience in participating in the Ethiopian war where he witnessed the systematic use of toxic gases in a ruthless conflict beyond the rhetoric of the regime.
After the Republican militia was called to arms, he went into hiding, organizing a partisan unit operating on Monte Fogliano and having logistics in the San Martino area. The “Cimino Band”, initially autonomous and then coordinated by the National Liberation Committee, was made up of soldiers who had refused the call, former students of the same partisan Buratti, Jews including Attilio Coen, elements of the Action Party and the Gap . The resistance formation of the Cimini distinguished itself in high-risk actions such as the assault on an arms depot on Lake Vico, the shooting down of a German stork plane and numerous sabotage actions on bridges and telegraph lines.
Mariano Buratti was also the link with the OSS intelligence service which favored the landing of the allies in Anzio. Following an denunciation, he was captured by Kappler at Ponte Milvio, imprisoned and shot at Forte Bravetta on 31 January 1944. Buratti’s family members themselves, during the identification of the body, highlighted Pula signs of torture perpetrated on his body by the SS in the prison in via Badger.
The legacy of Mariano Buratti and the Viterbo Resistance is the vocation to free thought, the abnegation for the ideal of justice, and the contribution and sacrifice for the Liberation of Italy which has reached its seventy-ninth anniversary.
Happy April 25th.
Emanuel Alison Flamini
April 25, 2024
