They were dramatic months: the Nazi occupation, the republican fascists who raged, the partisans who fought in the city and in the countryside around the city. Then the insurrection, on 11 August 1944, the Allies at Porta Romana, the city finally free. A story that cannot be forgotten. And for those who don’t want to do it, the appointment is set for Saturday 22 June. That day Republic will give away the book in all newsstands in Tuscany, combined with the purchase of the newspaper “1944 Florence rises up – Eighty years ago the liberation from Nazi-fascism”.
The 144-page volume was written by Valdo Spiniformer minister and parliamentarian and president of the Circolo Rosselli Foundation, and from Matteo Mazzoni, director of the Tuscan Historical Institute of the Resistance and the Contemporary Age. Two authors who take readers back to the months preceding the dramatic summer of 1944, telling stories the history and stories of partisan formations, of the Gaps active in the city, of the roundups, of the deportations. The book, which will be available in digital version for all subscribers, continues with the convulsive weeks of June and July of eighty years ago: the “Carità gang”, the fascist torturers of Villa Triste, increasingly unleashed, with the decimation of the Gap and Radio Cora, the shootings, the Allies approaching. Until to the order of insurrection, launched by the Ctln on 11 August 1944. And Liberation.
The book is full of photographs: readers will find Radio Cora’s ciphers, images of the Sinigaglia brigade, the partisans fighting in the streets of Florence. AND the destruction inflicted by fleeing Nazis and fascists: the bridges over the Arno blown up on the night between 3 and 4 August, the rubble in front of Ponte Vecchio. And, a year later, the city was awarded the gold medal for military valour.
