Author: coffeeandhistory

The first partisan band: Free Italy

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“Dear former partisans, you've been heroes not because of the armed struggle, But first of all for the courage and dignity to rebel and say no to the authoritarian power and that in part was also warmonger. A boy of the partisan war”. These lines can be read on a sheet hanging on the door of a cabin of Paraloup, literally "defence from wolves", small Alpine Township of the municipality of Rittana, country belonging to the Stura Valley located in the province of Cuneo.

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Sheet visible outside a cabin Paraloup Township

 

 

 

This place 1.360 meters altitude took some historical significance since it was the site of the first partisan band of Justice and liberty, one of the partisan groups more numerous after the "Brigate Garibaldi". Under the Green handkerchief, the men of the Brigade GL Italy Free were led by charismatic characters including Giorgio Bocca, Duccio Galimberti, Dante Livio Bianco and Nuto Revelli, to name just a few.

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Stone visible upon arrival at Quiot Rosa, important communication point

 

 

 

 

The 20 September 1943 the first organized partisan in Piemonte (and probably in Italy) moved to the borgata Paraloup, perfect vantage point and cuneese plain check. The village soon became a fixed camp and also an enlistment, including dormitories and canteens.

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The huts belonging to the Township of Paraloup were renovated and partially used as a Museum of memory

 

 

 

The cradle of the first partisan welcomed hundreds of young people involved in the resistance, men and women brought together by a single ideal: defend their territories to ensure a future free of any dictatorship.

Today Paraloup, the subject of a careful architectural restoration with the contribution of fondazione Nuto Revelli ", can be easily reached with a short walk of 30 minutes from Chiot Rosa, where you can leave your car. From opening a series of "paths of resistance", trails that only seven decades ago were paths from men and women searching for freedom and hope, all with the desire to build a better world.

Maria

 

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Salvatore Riina declares war

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And’ Sadly obvious that, during the centuries-old struggle between the State and the mafia now, COSA nostra has always won because her rival has never been able to look beyond their nose or, even more daunting, didn't want to do it: just like in these days of popular uprising against the television program Porta a Porta, guilty of having invited to study the third child of Salvatore Riina. Once again the old lion caged, for a quarter of a century, attracted attention to himself. Trying to get past the emotion of anger (justified) against the initiative of WaSP, It would be interesting to focus on why this book was written by Ragsdale jr. We make order. No one in the family Riina would have taken the initiative, let alone the responsibility, to write a book that refers to the head of Cosa nostra without the endorsement of the latter, Toto Riina. According to the "rules" of mafia boss, Although in prison, is always the Riina. In recent times it is happening a new fact: in prison, during the hour of fresh air, Ragsdale speaks with his cellmate, vindicating massacres and execute mode, real and alleged. The man who made of silence and silence one of the pillars of their lives, It is now a raging river: the stories follow one another so incessant. Especially, Riina sort, without success, the death of the judge s involved in conducting the process Negotiation State-mafia. But his orders remain in vain, Fortunately. And’ a Ragsdale disoriented that in prison, that no longer recognizes his Cosa nostra, that of the years ' 80 and ' 90, one that when it was decided an ambush “It was out of, without thinking more″ (CIT. S. Riina), that organization who could be scary to the State and that, in some ways, the commanding and forced him to come to terms. Today, the mafia, outside, has changed., is undergoing reorganization: the fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro, He who with a grand gesture should take over the reins of the Organization, It looks good from doing sensational attacks for fear of a genuine State action directed to his capture (for example, the capture of Riina after massacres 1992 Capaci and via d'amelio, following the popular uprising that invoked, claimed and yelled the task of capturing the massacres, that was in January 1993). The mafia is trying to regroup by spreading from below, the so-called mandates, from the stump hard which has always guaranteed in history people loyal and heinous "soldiers": However, Thanks to the courageous action of palermitani magistrates, This reconstruction is regularly cleared, making ever more scorched earth around Messina Denaro. Yet. La Cosa nostra in the new Millennium, on the set he had given Bernardo Provenzano in late 1990s, is an organization that talking about the economy, Finance, investments, joint-stock company, forgetting the language "Riiniano" of bombs, Mitra, massacres, blood, dead. The first is a setting that allows criminals to operate in silence, While the second has always caused a strong media focus as a result of massacres that have become historical now. All this cannot be accepted by the capo dei capi, which not only no longer recognizes the "organization", but neither the company: in the years ' 80 and ' 90, precisely, to the anger of the days immediately following to crimes, for example in Capaci and via d'amelio, It made almost never followed an action lasting popular protest. Today, Thanks to the numerous organizations throughout the area, Italian and the goodwill of many citizens, all inspired by the teachings of Falcone and Borsellino, the company took to the streets as at the time, but not only, It poses itself as a guarantor, as a shield against judges, of magistrates, of law enforcement officials, of officers. And’ a company that, in some ways, replaces the status on the request and claim to a total and permanent elimination of the mafia, though unfortunately does not have, as the State, the means to perpetrate such action. The game then continues its course. Despite his age, the harsh prison, the weight of the anonymity of many years, Salvatore Riina has lost the will to fight and take back what he claims: his role as head of the Organization: However, the boss is aware that, If it can't be him, This role can and should move on to someone you trust, given that even those off the following more. Then from prison Salvatore Riina thinks, While the State, as sang De Andrè, “…you are, You unworthy, undertakes, then throws in the towel with great dignity. "

Roberto Rossetti

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A woman who is not afraid: Edda Ciano Mussolini

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1925. A teenage girl of fifteen years has just found out that mom has a love affair with the stationmaster of the country. The girl ashamed and disapproval of the behavior of the mother. Still doesn't know that life, sometimes, door men and women to seek consolation, revenge, or just a form of love outside of marriage. And condemnation for this mother, often violent and grumpy, a mother from slap easy, always locked in the kitchen. For the girl is simply inconceivable to think that dad might be betrayed. He knows that his father has betrayed and betrays often mom, especially during his long absence for work, but that does not count. He can, He can do all things.
This is the story of Edda Ciano Mussolini. Born in 1910, often lives far from father. However between the two develops a deep bond, made of silences full of meaning. It is the father who teaches her that should never be seen crying in public, and above all must never be afraid.
The beloved daughter of the duce, the eldest, is a capricious girl and stubborn, restless and bizarre, the only one who can stand up to the father and to which it is allowed to do so. Parents see in marriage the only natural brake at this girl's smart and rebellious excesses: start this way to propose to Edda a number of young men with excellent references, which are discarded one after another. The young man had a Jewish boy, presenting to the mother: Rachele, out of spite, preparing a lunch of ham, What that does not factor at all the pretender. Benito refuses to grant their hand obviously preferred to a Jew, and between these two the relationship ends. However, Edda in getting, ten years later, her Jewish friend from the concentration camp that was finished because of racial events.
Edda weddings in Rome 24 April 1930 count Galeazzo Ciano, met at a ball a few months before. A man who Edda will define perfect, Although it is still herself who described it as a husband by the hand "to and fro" and especially as a large "tombeur de femmes". The daughter of Mussolini will suffer greatly as a result of cheating husband, until, After spending an entire night trying in vain to get sick from pneumonia to frighten her husband, decide that whatever happened she would not have been ever more jealous. Edda and cyan continued to live together, UPS and downs, being like brother and sister, but not stopped ever to betray each other.
War breaks out: Edda works right from the start as a red cross nurse, first in Turin, then in Albania, where your ship is sunk by a British torpedo, and finally in Sicily, during the allied landings.
The 25 July 1943 the Countess is on holiday at the seaside with children, When it receives a message from the husband Cyan that asks her to return for Rome. Il duce fell. Edda strives to find a safe place for the whole family, trying first to the Vatican, then addressing himself directly to the Germans: the latter offer the family an escape for the Cyan Spain, but will prove a trap that will lead us in Germany, prisoners of the Nazis. The 18 October 1943 Cyan is stopped by officials of the new Social Republic of Salo and recalled to Italy: After you've secured the children in Switzerland, the woman will do anything to try to free her husband and to avoid the death sentence. Edda try to swap the man's diaries (anti German) to obtain in Exchange for the release of her husband; but Ciano is brutally shot the 11 January 1944 in Verona, along with other "traitors".
For Edda this is the beginning of the end. In the last meeting with il duce took place a few weeks before, Edda told Benito that if he hadn't intervened for Galeazzo she would have considered her father. The woman is angry with his mother, He has never taken the side of cyan in the past, much less in this circumstance.
Edda rejoins with children in Switzerland, Sola, and you move from a nursing home to another. He carries her husband's diaries, which will become a historical source of primary importance to reconstruct the facts of fascism from ' 36 to ' 43. And Switzerland that Edda will, via radio, the dreadful end of his father, the disgraceful end of piazzale Loreto, Mussolini hanging upside down with his mistress Claretta Petacci.
It's the showdown: Edda is called in Italy, and with grotesque charges was sent into internal exile on Lipari. Benefiting from an amnesty, Unable to be reunited with her children after a year of posting, and the battle begins to get the corpse of his father and the family property, battle that after long years will win.

The only thing that Edda claims to have done well is being managed, over time, to reunite what remained of his family: his mother and mother-in-law, the children and grandmothers. Inflexible and authoritarian woman, called "Edda" by his own sons, but at the same time fragile and vulnerable woman, Edda suffered unimaginable suffering, but following the advice of father, "never be afraid", he dared, After the terrible facts that marked his life, to live a near normal life.

Maria

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Will is power: the woman who won the "top of Europe"

 

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September 1838. Chamonix. Like all day, stands out in the open sky the huge Mont Blanc, the massif of the Alps, "Top of Europe" with its 4.810 meters of altitude. The village is in a tizzy, something's up again and bizarre: a French woman, a Countess, want to reach the Summit of Mount, and he wants to do it alone, Thanks to their strength and stubbornness only.

In 1811 already another French woman, Marie Paradis, He attempted the ascent of the Massif, arriving at the Summit. Failed to accomplish the feat only thanks to their strengths, but he had to, halfway, beseech the help of guides who brought the woman to shoulders, seeds passed out, to the top.
Henriette of Angeville, our protagonist, He was a passionate of mountains. Born in Burgundy in 1794, He moved with his family in the Rhône, in Southern France – Eastern. There the contessina fell soon of nature and of the Alps; from an early age Henriette took it into his head that one day would attempt the climb, and that would be the first woman to reach the Summit without the help of a man.
So the 02 September 1838, at 6 in the morning, the woman and the guides began in March. The path was up to 4.300 meters of altitude, When the cold was almost unbearable, as well as fatigue. Henriette threatened several times to fall on deaf ears, but he always refused to take her shoulders, stubborn and obstinate in his purpose. The party reached the Summit the next day at 13,25. The Countess, at the peak of satisfaction and happiness wrote in the snow: "Willpower", as if to say that nothing is impossible if coexist determination and efforts to achieve their goals.
Nicknamed "the girlfriend of Mont Blanc", Henriette and her story are quickly fallen into oblivion, Although the effort completed by the woman can be regarded as a real company. Mountain climbing as we understand it today, extension of Alpine tourism in addition to joy of discovery, did not exist in those years, and mostly the activity at high altitude was practiced by men for scientific purposes, as the measurement of pressure and temperature. Henriette was not only the first woman to reach their own feet the highest peak in Europe, But even ahead of the times and the passions that would then distinguished many women centuries.

Maria

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Anschluss: so Hitler took Austria

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The 13 March 1938 ends the process of direct annexation of Austria to Germany, the so-called “Anschluss”. The operation, only started the previous day, is entry into Austrian territory by German soldiers, in the occupation of cities and in taking full control of all State functions. The Austrian troops, overall, don't oppose any form of resistance and the Austria falls, all too easily, in the hands of Nazi Germany, to the amazement of the hierarchs and the same Fuhrer. Europe merely a verbal warning, Whereas, however, the Austria almost “a territorial extension” thereof Germany, while Mussolini notified with a telegram from the same Chancellor, He finds himself so the German army at Brenner. For Adolf Hitler, the Austria is a fundamental territorial conquest, for the following reasons. First, It is his country of origin, Since he was born in Branau, a small village situated on the border with the Austrian border German territory: Hitler prefers as a teenager the Germany to Austria, captures the grandeur of the State and its people, its intrinsic power and fascination of the myth of “Volk”. According to, the annexation is crucial to extending the living space in German: already in his Mein Kampf, Hitler lists what are the necessary steps to expand Germany and make it so dominant status in Europe and the world. Third. in this way the German dictator can exert a strong pressure towards Italy, allocating its troops at the border of the Alps. Europe is well aware that Hitler will not stop at Austria, in fact, in a few years will be conquered and annexed Czechoslovakia and Poland. Only after the invasion of the latter, which took place on 1 September 1939, Europe will control the German dictator, but it will be too late. One could predict and stop Adolf Hitler? Yes, It would have been enough to read the Mein Kampf and interpret it not as her diary of thoughts, but as his political program that the Fuhrer will implement step by step: invasions, war, extermination, genocide. But, in England and France, suited at that time that a strong State, decided, bellicose is required by from the embankment “worrying” Soviet power. Nobody reckoned the fury and not Hitler's madness, but his lucid and transparent plan of death and destruction. Europe paid dearly for this mistake losing, Forever, the role of hegemonic continent, on behalf of the United States.

For now, Hitler parading on his self discovery, among jubilant crowds, his heart is full of joy and revenge, managed it: that Austrian guy roaming the streets without a goal, avoided by all, never appreciated for his talent as an artist that he claimed to have, that young boy is now acclaimed and praised by all. For a moment the Fuhrer will think that is enough so, but it is just a moment, Czechoslovakia back in her eyes.

Roberto Rossetti

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