A sentence by Giorgia Meloni in memory of the victims of the Fosse Ardeatine massacre has unleashed the anger of the opposition. On the occasion of the seventy-ninth anniversary of the massacre, which claimed the lives of 335 civilians, Meloni recalled the victims by speaking of “innocents massacred just because they were Italians”. A step that did not go down well with the Democratic Party and other members of the left-wing opposition, who stressed that those 335 people had been killed “because they were anti-fascists”.
Fosse Ardeatine, the words of Giorgia Meloni
“Today Italy honors the victims of the massacre of Fosse Ardeatine. A massacre that marked one of the deepest and most painful wounds inflicted on our national community: 335 innocent Italians massacred just because they were Italians. “It is up to all of us – institutions, civil society, schools and the world of information – to remember those martyrs and to tell the younger generations in particular what happened on that terrible March 24, 1944. May memory never be a mere exercise in style but a civic duty to be exercised every day”, he continues Giorgia Meloni.
But the passage referring to the victims massacred “just because they are Italian” did not please the left. “I called them Italians. Why aren’t anti-fascists Italian? It seems to me that it is all-encompassing ”, replied Giorgia Meloni herself, responding to the accusations.
Harsh reply from two deputies of the Democratic Party
The Anpi, the national partisan association, harshly commented on Giorgia Meloni’s words. But several members of the Democratic Party also attacked the Prime Minister. “335 martyrs in a quarry not far from the houses.
Not because they are Italians but because they are partisans, politicians, Jews, dissidents, along with many free men and women, killed in reprisal,” he wrote on Twitter. Clare Bregadeputy of the Pd and secretary of the presidency of the Chamber.
On the same wavelength too Clare Gribaudovice president of the Democratic Party, who criticizes the words of Giorgia Meloni with a tweet.
Fosse Ardeatine, the comment of the Anpi in response to Giorgia Meloni
Nicola Fratoianni, national secretary of the Italian Left, replied to Giorgia Meloni as follows: “No, President Meloni: 335 people were not killed by the Nazi-fascists at the Fosse Ardeatine just because they were Italian. Because they were Italians and anti-fascists, Jews, partisans. Will she be able to write that word one day? ANTI-FASCIST”.
The position taken by the Anpi on the matter is clear: “It should be noted that, of course, they were Italian, but they were chosen on the basis of a selection that affected the anti-fascists, the resistants, the political opponents, the Jews”.
“It must be added that the list of some of those who, as Giorgia Meloni stated, were ‘barbarically slaughtered by the Nazi occupation troops’, was compiled with the complicity of the commissioner Pietro Caruso, of the minister of the interior of the republic of Salò Guido Buffarini Guidi, of the war criminal Pietro Koch, all fascists”, commented the president of the Anpi Gianfranco Pagliarulo.
Photo source: ANSA