About one hundred and twenty biographies, complete with photos and unpublished documents, of the anti-fascists of Castelfiorentino. Ordinary people: workers, labourers, artisans who, from the very beginning, said “NO” to the movement founded by Mussolini, facing a very uncertain destiny. Forced to emigrate abroad, to France and Belgium, or to remain “exiled” in their homeland, suffering arrests, intimidation, reprisals of all kinds. Inevitable consequences of a difficult choice, suffered, but consistent with one’s own ideas.
This is the calling card of the volume “Gli Anti-Marcia. I castellani che dissero NO al Fascismo”, by Alessandro Spinelli and Marco Mangini, which will be presented Saturday 9 November (4:30 p.m.) at the Ridotto del Teatro del Popolo. A publication financed by the SPI CGIL and sponsored by the Municipality of Castelfiorentino, which brings together in full the results of a research conducted at the Casellario Politico Centrale (Central State Archive), the tool used by the fascist regime to “card” that part of the Italian population it considered appropriate to monitor constantly, both in Italy and abroad.
An instrument that, paradoxically, is now able to restore the vicissitudes of many citizens who had hitherto practically disappeared from history, finally doing them justice.
The volume, of which some anticipations have been given through three exhibition events promoted by the Municipality of Castelfiorentino, promises many novelties, as in the meantime research has gone ahead discovering further unpublished details. The presentation will be attended – in addition to the authors – by Nadia Meacci (secretary of the “Alvaro Bianchi” SPI CGIL- League of Castelfiorentino), the mayor Francesca Giannì, the provincial SPI CGIL secretary, Mario Battistini, the president of the Ires Regionale CGIL, Maurizio Brotini, and finally the Hon. Vannino Chiti, president of the Historical Institute of the Tuscan Resistance. A large attendance is expected from family members, also from other locations outside Tuscany.
“Since I was very young”, observes the mayor, Francesca Giannì, “also for reasons connected to the story of my grandfather, a young anti-fascist and partisan who left the Sicilian countryside to defend Italy and our freedom, I have always shown a strong interest in the vicissitudes of the men who took part in the anti-fascist and Resistance movement, identifying myself with their sacrifices, the hardships and material deprivation they were forced to endure, not to mention the abuse, violence and imprisonment they suffered. Restoring dignity to these people, through remembrance, is not only a duty towards their families and descendants, but also a sign of gratitude that the entire community owes to those who, in the “dark” years of Fascism, cultivated the dream of an ideal of justice and freedom”.
‘’When a few months ago,‘’ observes Nadia Meacci, secretary of the SPI CGIL Castelfiorentino, ‘’we were approached with the proposal to publish a book that would collect the stories of the citizens of Castelfiorentino, most of whom were forced to emigrate so as not to suffer reprisals from the nascent fascist regime or to remain exiled in their homeland, we did not hesitate for a moment to accept it. The approximately one hundred and twenty people recorded offer a remarkable contribution in terms of historical and human value to the knowledge of anti-Fascism in Tuscany and allow us to write in the true sense of the word pages of history that seemed to have been forgotten”.