The snow was white, the black was advancing. End of January, like now. They put them against the wall and shot them. There is still a plaque commemorating that massacre and to Ilaria Salis, when she founded Boccaccio twenty years ago, it didn’t seem right to occupy such a location. A social center in the heart of very bourgeois Monza, in that abandoned factory. Right there, in via Boccaccio, where the Nazis had shot three partisans in the snow, and after a night of torture in prison: “There is no more suitable place…”.
At the time Ilaria was 18 years old and had just graduated from Zucchi classical high school, the one for self-management and nerds. Very high ratings. A great desire to study history. And to interpret it: even on February 9 last year, after all, another date from ’45 was celebrated in Budapest and she had gone because that Tag der Ehre, that Day of Honor – other than the Martyrs on via Boccaccio! – dishonored European anti-fascism by celebrating the death of a handful of Nazi soldiers. «She felt the need to participate in that demonstration – says her aunt, Carla Rovelli –, but because she is a very good person, an idealist». And her father: «She has always been passionate about social causes. Always. Since high school. She consumed herself with books and political commitment. She practically founded the social center…”.
For next Saturday, Boccaccio’s companions have prepared the usual theatrical staging, «The snow was white». But history runs, sometimes recurs. And this time they won’t just talk about the partisans of ’45: «Freedom for Gabri, Maja, Ila, Tobi! – says a poster -. Solidarity with those arrested for the events in Budapest! Free All Antifas!”.
«Ila» will be able to see her parents again today. You will receive your monthly package, your history books. You will get more visits per month. «On Monday we managed to talk to her for a few ten minutes – her father is exhausted -. Only light topics, to distract her a bit…”. After the chains trial, the hours in Budapest of the engineer Roberto Salis are pure Kafka: «A wave is growing to discredit Ilaria’s actions – he says –, photos of a crime committed in Hungary are also circulating, for which my daughter is not even accused of… They literally tortured her. But despite the attempt to cause her a psychological breakdown, she resisted. Because she has nothing to confess.”
A repeat of that Tag der Ehre, on February 9th, an event of skinheads who descend from half of Europe, is being prepared in Budapest. With Orbán’s blessing. The capital will be besieged by other “antifa” marches, like the one Ilaria took part in last year: special forces, cameras everywhere, because the Hungarian police still fear attacks. Especially those of the Hammerbande organization, founded in 2017 in Leipzig by the “Nazi hunter” Lina Engel, with the explicit aim of “attacking fascist militants” in public demonstrations. Much video footage from 2023 concerns these attacks, for which European arrest warrants have been issued.
But the images pointing to the Milanese teacher – two black extremists beaten by a group of hooded men – do not seem to be sufficient proof at the moment. Ilaria is accused of four assaults: two charges have already been dropped, because it was shown that at that time the woman had not yet arrived in Hungary. Nor does it seem enough that Ilaria was arrested a few hours later in a taxi, together with a German companion, a retractable truncheon in her pocket. Without counting her, she repeats the defense, the disproportion between a few blows from a few days of prognosis and the exorbitant risk of twenty years in prison.
Ilaria has always said she had nothing to do with it. In the cell, and in those conditions, for six months she never wanted her father to speak to the media. «But I didn’t know what condition he was in…», he says now. Tough girl, Ila: many people in Monza repeat it and even the mayor, Paolo Pilotto, who was her religion teacher at Zucchi, remembers it. A passion for mountain climbing and for theatre: she knows Le Troiane by heart, an anti-militarist opera, and as a girl she starred in an amateur film about Nazi raids (“she played the part of someone who escaped the Nazis…”). A degree in History from the University, with full marks, with a thesis on Sant’Ambrogio. A job as a primary school teacher in Milan and a brother. «But please don’t give too many details – the father is worried -. On Monday in the courtroom, hidden among the audience, there were also four Nazis who were keeping an eye on us…”. Ilaria’s Milanese address has already appeared on some far-right sites. And if this matter is resolved with house arrest in Italy, “what we hope for”, it is better to be careful.