“Via Rasella was a far from noble page of the Resistance, those killed were a musical band of semi-retired and non-Nazi SS”. Ignatius LaRussa, president of the Senate, thus describes the partisan attack to which the Germans reacted with the massacre of the Fosse Ardeatine. March 23 – the anniversary of the massacre in which 335 people were killed, including Jews, partisans and anti-fascists – this year has become a coincidence for the sentence of the premier Giorgia Meloni (“killed only because Italians”). Now a new controversy has broken out over the La Russa statements. From the Pd to the Anpi, the complaint: “Words unworthy for the high office he holds”.
“Via Rasella was not a glorious page of the Resistance”
Now the president of the Senate also defends the sentence of the premier: “A specious attack” on Meloni, because when she “says ‘killed because Italians’ she knows very well that those Italians had been killed in retaliation for what the partisans had in via Rasella – he explains in the podcast “Terraverso” by Free Daily – Everyone knows that the Nazis murdered political prisoners, Jews, anti-fascists and randomly rounded up people, obviously not people who worked with them. If he has to enclose them in a single word, he says ‘because Italians’. You can’t make a scandal out of it”. La Russa is keen to clarify: “The attack in via Rasella was not one of the most glorious pages of the partisan Resistance, those whom the partisans killed were not sinister Nazis from the SS but a musical band of semi-retired South Tyroleans (at that time half German, half Italian), knowing full well the risk of retaliation to which Roman citizens, anti-fascists and otherwise, were exposed”.
With the ongoing controversy, La Russa tries to clarify: “I confirm word for word my harsh condemnation of the massacre of the Fosse Ardeatine which only a few days ago I defined as ‘one of the most brutal pages of our history’. I also confirm that triggering the odious Nazi retaliation was the killing of a band of Nazi South Tyroleans and I stress that this action has not been defined by me as ‘inglorious’ but ‘among the least glorious of the resistance'”.
On April 25th
Words that make people talk. Also in anticipation of next April 25 on which the Anpi has launched a social campaign that anticipates the great mobilization that will take place during the Liberation Day in Gabratella, an anti-fascist Roman district. Meanwhile “It will not be the first that I celebrate, I went to the defense minister to pay homage to the monument of the partisans, I brought a bouquet of flowers to all the partisans, even the red ones who, as is known, did not want a free and democratic Italy but they wanted a communist Italy, because they had the myth of communist Russia. Anyone who dies for an idea and for an ideal choice can never be the object of aversion”, comments the president of the Senate. He no longer has the bust of the Duce in his house, he repeats, because his sister “stole it”.
In the interview of Libero also some passages on surrogacy: “They can’t say that opposing it is a right-wing thing: left-wing people, feminist movements, gay friends say it’s a disgrace and resembles racism. They talk about children as if it were the cover of the sofa at home , what fabric do you want? Same with the son, who knows if you can have one green eye and one black?”, comments the second state official. The rented uterus, therefore, is not good. “It is possible to evaluate adoptions for gay couples – he says – Rather than at the orphanage, I have no difficulty imagining a child for a gay couple, but I wish that already today, which is reserved for heterosexual couples, adoption would be less complicated. However, the wrong thing is to say that for the child it is the same thing to have two dads or two moms as having a dad and a mom. It’s not the same thing, then maybe he can be fine anyway “, he concludes.
The reactions
The declaration on the attack in via Rasella causes discussion. “It is serious that the president of the Senate, the second office of a state born of the Resistance and the war of liberation, speaks of via Rasella in the way he did in the interview with Libero. We are faced with an example of historical revisionism which, moreover, espouses the point of view of the fascists. I’m sorry for La Russa but it is not acceptable to put the partisans who fought to free Italy and the Nazi-fascists on the same level”, commented the president of the senators of the Democratic Party Francesco Boccia. The dem senator asks for “respect”. Francesco Verduccifrom the Culture Commission at Palazzo Madama: “To the political forces that organized the Resistance, and among them to the Italian Communists, we all owe the conquest of freedom and democracy, which the fascist tyranny had killed, and the foundation of our Republic. The The Italian Constitution is signed, together with the presidents De Gasperi and Einaudi, by an Italian communist, the president Umberto Terracini. La Russa respects the history of who founded the Republic. It is on the basis of the sacrifice of the partisans, and among them many communists, that today he can sit at the top of our Republic”.
La Russa’s words are “simply unworthy for the high office he holds and represent yet another, very serious tear aimed at absolving fascism and delegitimizing the Resistance – complaint Gianfranco Pagliarulo, president of Anpi – The third battalion of the Polizeiregiment hit in via Rasella while parading armed to the teeth was completing its training to then go on to fight the Allies and the partisans, as actually happened. The other two battalions of the Polizeiregiment – he continues – had long been engaged in Istria and Veneto against the partisans. The attack in via Rasella, publicly praised by the Anglo-American commands, was the most important war action carried out in a European capital. After the Prime Minister, even the President of the Senate pretends to ignore that they were not the only Nazis who organized the massacre of the Fosse Ardeatine, because they had the fundamental support of Italian fascist authorities”.
“La Russa’s words on Via Rasella are an unprecedented act of revisionism. In other words: the partisans asked for it a bit. The second office of the state cannot confuse the victims with the perpetrators. And clear the point of view of the fascists. Unworthy and cowardly,” he comments the deputy and coordinator of Article 1, Arthur Scott.
“The president of the Senate insists on wanting to rewrite history, with serious damage to the credibility of Italy and its institutions of which, it should be remembered, he is an important expression”, he said in a statement Osvaldo Naplesof the National Secretariat for Action. “With a sentence of 7 August 2007, the Court of Cassation clarified that the Nazi soldiers killed in via Rasella were “subjects fully fit for arms, between 26 and 43 years old, equipped with six bombs and ‘Maschinenpistolen'” and not retired musicians South Tyroleans, as claimed by La Russa”.
Attacking too Riccardo Magisecretary of +Europe: “The second office of the State thus starts its celebrations for April 25, with a mix of false history and lack of sense of the State and democracy. They are not the official celebrations, of course, and neither should he be the second official office of the Village”.
Angelo Bonellithe co-spokesman of Green Europe and deputy of Verdi and the Left, calls for the resignation of the president of the Senate: “Those of Ignazio La Russa are unworthy words, an unrepentant and nostalgic of the twenty years of fascism which owes thanks to the life of the partisans who they fought for democracy and to free Italy from fascism, its political fortune and get to be elected, alas, President of the Senate, an institution that exists thanks to the partisans that he insults today – comments Bonelli – His are ignoble words that offend the history of our country and the memory of all the partisans who sacrificed their lives to free Italy from fascism and to restore democracy. For these ignoble words, La Russa must resign: he is not worthy of representing the second office of the Italian State”.