In the week of April 25th, among the various commemorations scheduled, this morning the annual one was held in Ansaldo, in the presence of the mayor of Genoa, Marco Bucci and the vice-president of the Regional Council Armando Sanna. In June 80 years ago Genoa was hit by one of the largest raids of workers in Italy and one of the largest in Europe. After ten days of strikes, and four of the factory lockout ordered by the prefect Basile, the Germans and fascists surrounded the San Giorgio, the Ansaldo shipyard, the SIAC steelworks and the Piaggio and broke in with the aim of breaking the workers’ resistance, terrorize the city, and provide labor for the National Socialist war economy. 1,500 workers are captured and loaded onto convoys destined for the Reich. Some manage to escape but at least 1,300 arrive in Mauthausen, where they will stay for a few weeks before being forced into forced labor.
The great deportation of 16 June 1944 cannot be understood outside the history of the workers’ struggles in the Genoese Resistance and the strikes that began in Turin in the large factories starting from March 1943 and which then embraced the entire industrial triangle. If one reason for the raid is the German occupier’s need to have manpower to send to Germany, even stronger is the political need on the part of the Nazi-Fascists to block the long and difficult open game with the Genoese workers, which since autumn they had started a long wave of massive strikes which also had a strong impact on the citizens.
The Genoese Resistance, like the Italian one, took place over 20 long, hard and difficult months and was the crucible of that meeting of men and women from different histories and cultures gathered in the National Liberation Committee, the crucible/at the base/cradle of the future pact constitutional.
Tags: Liguria commemoration April #25th Ansaldo
