April 25, Mattarella: "Keep the memory alive". Meloni: "He brought us democracy, now let's defend it in Ukraine"
Messages from the Head of State and the Prime Minister
Sergio Mattarella and Giorgia Meloni (Ansa)
It is necessary " to keep alive the memory of the Nazi-fascist atrocities but above all not to forget those who fought and allowed the liberation of Italy from the Nazi-fascist oppression ".
Thus Sergio Mattarella anticipated the celebrations of April 25 , which this year more than others draw a country divided by ancient lacerations never completely overcome. And well exemplified by the agenda of the first two offices of state.
If the President of the Republic goes to Piedmont, with a symbolic stop in Boves, scene of the first massacre carried out in Italy by the Nazis, the President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa flies across the border to Prague, to pay homage to the figure of Jan Palach, the young Czechoslovakian became a symbol of anti-communism because on January 16, 1969 he committed suicide by setting himself on fire to protest against the Soviet invasion.
Giorgia Meloni intervened with a letter to Corriere della Sera: « The fundamental fruit of April 25 was, and undoubtedly remains, the affirmation of democratic values , which fascism had trampled on and which we find engraved in the republican Constitution. From that patient negotiation aimed at defining the principles and rules of our nascent liberal democracy came a text that set itself the goal of uniting and not dividing".
"April 25, 1945 - writes the Prime Minister - evidently marks a watershed for Italy: the end of the Second World War, of the Nazi occupation, of the Fascist period, of the anti-Jewish persecutions, of the bombings and of many other losses and hardships that have long afflicted our national community. Unfortunately it did not also mark the end of the bloody civil war that had torn the Italian people apart, which in some territories lasted and even divided individual families, overwhelmed by a spiral of hatred that led to summary executions even several months after the end of the conflict ».
And again, moving on to the present day: «In this new bipolarity, Italy has made its choice of field, and it is a clear choice. We are on the side of freedom and democracy, without ifs and buts, and this is the best way to update the message of April 25th. Because with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, our freedom is once again in real danger .'
(Unioneonline/L)
