This morning, in Sestri Ponente, in the presence of the civil and military authorities, commemoration ceremonies were held in memory of the 80th anniversary of the Nazi-fascist deportation of fifteen hundred workers from the Genoese factories. That of 16 June 1944 was one of the most serious and largest reprisals of the entire period of occupation among those carried out in Northern and Central Italy.
The Holy Mass officiated in the Basilica of NS Assunta in Piazza Baracca was followed by the laying of wreaths in the atrium of Palazzo Fieschi and the commemorative oration held by Marco Granara, CISL manager of the Metropolitan Area.
Together with Granara, the councilor of the Municipality of Genoa for Work and Economic Development Mario Mascia, the president of the VI Medio Ponente Municipality Cristina Pozzi, the president of the Ligurian Institute for the History of Resistance and the Contemporary Age (ILSREC) participated Mino Ronzitti, the president of the 16 Giugno ’44 association Francesco Quaglia and Daniela Botta councilor of the Metropolitan City of Genoa, as well as the regional councilor Selena Candia.
Among the most touching moments of the ceremony was President Ronzitti’s moving memory of Cristina Quaglia, Francesco’s sister and former president of the 16 Giugno ’44 association, who passed away in May, to whom a minute of silence was dedicated in memory.
«A good 80 years have passed since that deportation of fifteen hundred workers from the Genoese factories, by the Nazi-fascists, yet the gaze of the Genoese, also thanks to these annual re-enactments, is as if it had remained fixed on that so inexplicable evil, inflicted on the city community all of it, to its workers, to their families, by men blinded by the instinct of oppression – states the municipal councilor Mario Mascia – It is a page of our history that reminds us how much evil can be perpetrated when we try to suffocate that sense of humanity which should instead peek out from our every thought and action in the name of respect for the dignity of every person. Today, remembering what happened then, it is therefore more essential than ever to ensure that such painful memories never fade. They must remain vivid so that they never stop spreading, even among the new generations, those teachings of wisdom and humanity useful for following with an ever more decisive step the roads that lead to peace and those popular and democratic paths which, as recalled by our own Constitution , repudiate war as well as any form of violence, even if only moral, as instruments of offense against the dignity and freedom of others and as a means of resolving any dispute or controversy”.
On Friday 15 June, in front of the Ex Siac press in Campi, the CGIL together with the Anpi wanted to remember those tragic events. Also present were the students of the Ligustica Academy of Fine Arts who took care of the restoration of the plaque. After the Campi ceremony, the book inspired by the story was presented: “Assault on the factory”. The author is the journalist Giovanni Mari, who explained how this particular story is still little known by the Genoese citizens.
