In memory of the Sardinian anti-fascist Renzo Giua, the book by the historian Cesare Panizza

«Without the war I would have remained an intellectual with predominantly literary interests. Only the war resolved the situation." This is the thought of Giaime Pintor, who died at the age of 24, on December 1, 1943, torn apart by a German mine while crossing Italy, from the south towards the center, to reach Rome and fight Nazi-fascism. Writer and translator with Sardinian roots, he translated the German poet Rilke into Italian.

Identical generation and similar destiny to that of another Sardinian, Renzo Giua, who died at the same age as Giaime Pintor, on the front of the Spanish civil war. He was there to defend the Republic with the anti-Franco formations. An instinctive anti-fascism breathed in the family. His father Michele, born in Castelsardo in 1889, approached socialism after the massacre of striking miners in Buggerru. He graduated in chemistry. Later, with the move to Turin, together with his son, he embraces Justice and Freedom. To Renzo and Mario Levi, his friend and fellow democratic and libertarian militant, the historian Cesare Panizza (professor at the University of Eastern Piedmont) dedicated “Friendship and Politics. Mario Levi and Renzo Giua in the anti-fascist conspiracy” (published by Pacini).

Thought and action

In the book two lives but also the fresco of a generation that with thought and action opposes the black shirt regime. Renzo is arrested by the police and then freed together with others from the Turin Justice and Freedom group. The activity against fascism continues. He crosses the border and ventures among the Autaret glaciers, 3400 meters above sea level, on the border between Italy and France. He is a good skier and has a physique that allows him to dare and complete a memorable feat. He arrives in Paris where, together with Mario Levi, Aldo Garosci, Franco Venturi, Nicola Chiaromonte and Andrea Caffi, he creates a close-knit group, united by elective affinities. Garosci himself describes the points of contact: «Crociano idealism, workerism, criticism of the old political formations, acceptance of fascism as the true and concrete contemporary reality to be overthrown, capitalism itself being only one element». After his father was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Special Court, he wrote to his mother: "It is clear that they have given my father the years reserved for me since 1932." Renzo and Mario Levi are not always in line with the positions of Carlo and Nello Rosselli on the idea of the State and the role of Justice and Freedom. The Spanish Civil War breaks out. Renzo Giua is among the first to leave. He is a company commander and then a battalion commander. He fights bravely and dies.

The memory

The portrait of his friend Ursula Hirschmann remains of him: «He was a handsome boy with steel gray eyes, short eyebrows and shiny teeth. He laughed at everything: at my questions, at my pronunciation, at my shyness... Everything about him was gratuitous: his life, his action, his death... He rose into the sky riding on a cloud that was a little too pink showy, laughing forever now, his heart torn apart by a Phalangist bomb."