Brothers of Italy defends the words of the president of the Senate, Ignatius LaRussa, on via Rasella, the partisan attack against a Nazi occupation unit in ’44. “Via Rasella was not an act to be proud of,” he declares Alfredo Antoniozzi, FdI deputy group leader in the Chamber: “Using La Russa’s words makes no sense because the shameful retaliation of the Nazis that struck anti-fascist Italians, Jews and ordinary citizens can never be justified by anyone”. Instead, the Minister of Tourism avoids statements Daniela Santanché: “I deal with tourism, I don’t comment”, he says in La Spezia.
Only in the early afternoon, forty-eight hours after the offending words, do they arrive an apology from the President of the Senate: “I am sincerely sorry that in the context of a long interview given to Libero, following my few words in response to a specific question on the specious criticisms addressed to Giorgia Meloni on the occasion of the celebrations for the Fosse Ardeatine massacre – to which I repeatedly participated with deep indignation and emotion – a wider controversy has arisen than the one I wanted to close “, writes La Russa in a note. “With the exception of the people who have commented speciously and in bad faith, I want instead to apologize to those who, even on the strength of inaccurate reports, have nevertheless found reasons to feel offended”, he adds.
La Russa first defends herself, then apologizes
Before the apology, La Russa himself had defended himself against the controversy over the sentences pronounced on Thursday and published yesterday by the newspaper Libero, in which he defined the action of the Resistance as “one of the least glorious”, because according to him it hit “a musical band of semi-retired people, not sinister Nazi SS”. “Perhaps I could have specified better that they were actually Nazis, yes, but it seemed obvious to me. But in fact I could have been more precise about that – declared the founder of FdI to Courier – If I had wanted to go to via Rasella I would have said something else. From now on, I will no longer speak of historical facts, only of current events – he promises – and I expect that I will be judged on what I do and say on current issues, not on the past, which I will, if anything, talk about with historians”.
Then the note to apologize and try to close the story. “I was wrong in not pointing out that the Germans killed in via Rasella were Nazi soldiers, but I thought it was obvious and obvious as well as well-known. I don’t know if the news, published several times and which I took at face value, is actually wrong. South Tyrolean reservists classified in the German police were also part of the military band of the corps”, he declares. “What is certain is that precisely to avoid controversy, I deliberately refrained from saying that many, including those on the left, were very critical of the partisan action in via Rasella. I limited myself to saying: ‘it was not one of the most glorious pages of the partisan resistance”.
Schlein: “An apology is not enough”
“Excuses are not enough because every day we hear very serious statements from people who hold important positions. Yesterday not only did they arrive on via Rasella with the intention of rewriting history: we have also heard of women as ovens, refrigerators, which are also ways to avoid the questions that the oppositions are asking”. The secretary of the Democratic Party says so Elly SchleinAnd from the Pd, on Facebook he is the senator Walter Verini to write: “La Russa is a serial provocateur. Every time she opens her mouth, she offends history, memory, the Resistance and the Constitution. The role of president of the Senate requires us to be anti-fascists. He is not and does not want to be, Fiano is right: he does not he is up to it, he resigns”.
The distancing of the League
After 24 hours of silence, the League also intervenes on the case, with the undersecretary Claudio Durigon: “Fascism and Nazi-fascism somehow ruined Italy in those years and I don’t think they can ever come back today, fortunately for us. Anti-fascism was certainly, with the partisans, a very useful thing for Italy and if today we have this democracy is thanks to this”.
The Anpi, the hope of resignation and April 25th
At the national demonstration on April 25 in Milan, the Anpi did not invite the president of the Senate to speak from the stage Ignatius LaRussanor that of the House Lorenzo Fontana. Something that has already happened in past years (from the stage they intervened Laura Boldrini in 2013 and Peter Grasso in 2017) but which, after the controversy over the words of La Russa on via Rasella take on a further meaning. “The second office of the state – comments the Milanese president of the PNA Roberto Cenati – should be a point of reference for everyone, to unite the country not to divide it and he is carrying out a divisive action by denigrating the resistance which instead was a unitary movement of all the parties and people that freed us from Nazi-fascism, restored the freedom to all. It is clear that anyone who wants to participate in the procession”, he adds, and therefore “everyone is welcome” also and above all because “we want April 25 to be a participatory and non-divisive demonstration”. Also for this reason it is not traditionally speaking from the stage government officials are invited, “from whatever coalition they may be. And the top officials in the state are not always invited.
This year, however, the “extraction” made in the past by La Russa and Fontana also weighed in the decision of the Standing Anti-Fascist Committee. The mayor of Milan will then intervene on stage Joseph SalaCenati himself, the national president of the PNA Gianfranco Pagliarulothe secretary of the CISL Luigi Barrathe national president of the Christian partisans Mariapia Garavagliathat of Aned, the ex-deported association, Dario Venegoni while the intervention of the partisan will be projected on a giant screen Aldo Tortorella, deputy and former president of the PCI who will turn 97 on 10 July. A student will then speak to “give a voice to young people so that they can take up the legacy of memory”.
“La Russa should be aware of the resignation as president of the Senate after his words on via Rasella because he is clearly inadequate for the role he covers”, declares the president of the Anpi Pagliarulo to Popular Radio, on the possible request for resignation by the National Association of Italian Partisans. On the presence of representatives of the government and of the majority at the celebrations of April 25, Pagliarulo states: “I agree with the choice of Roberto Cenati, provincial president of the Anpi of Milan, not to invite representatives of the institutions on the stage of the event after the embarrassing declarations of La Russian. It seems to me a wise choice after such a delicate and unpleasant situation that has arisen with the statements of the President of the Senate”.
Edith Bruck: “She lied knowing she could get away with it. She should resign”
by Raffaella De Santis
Opposition controversy
The last outing of the second state office is blamed by the Democratic Party. “Here we are no longer in the field of gaffes. By now La Russa has strung together a series of them so it seems to me that I can politely say that the second position in the state is held by those who do not have the characteristics”, says the president of the Pd, Stefano Bonaccini, calling his words “shameful and lying”. “The President of the Senate insists – declares the senator of the Democratic Party, Philip Sensi – If possible, worsen his position. There is only one word to define it. Only one way to fight it. All in our Constitution, in the foundations of the Republic, of the democracy whose name we bear as the Democratic Party”. The secretary of the CGIL is also hard, Maurizio Landini: “The president of the Senate La Russa, like many others, should always remember that if today ours is a democratic republic founded on work and there are free elections that have allowed his party to be in parliament and the government is thanks to the partisans and to the anti-fascists who defended our country and who defeated Nazi-fascism in our country”. he declared to Rai Radio1. “Without those acts, without that struggle – added Landini – our country would not be a democracy today. It would be necessary for those who swore by the Constitution to recognize it, apply it and fight in this direction”.
At the start of collecting signatures to ask for the resignation
An appeal to ask for the resignation of La Russa was launched by the Communist Refoundation which – in a note by Maurice Acerbo ed Elena Mazzoni, respectively national secretary and secretary of the Roman federation of the party – quote a petition launched on Change.org. “The president of the Senate must resign. His utterances on the Resistance cannot be traced back to opinions – reads the appeal – Nor are they one of the unfortunately widespread episodes of historical revisionism. They are a false history, the denial of judicial documents, a “offense against the Resistance and a pollution of the historical responsibilities of fascism and Nazism. We recognize ourselves in the statements made by the president of the Anpi, Gianfranco Pagliarulo. What the President of the Senate said is incompatible with the office he holds. We are certain that such evidence would lead to its immediate decline in many European countries. And it would be serious if this did not happen in Italy”. Among the first signatures, the PRC reports “those of the partisans Gaston Cottino e Aldo Tortorellaby the former Speaker of the House, Fausto Bertinottiby the president of ARCI, Walter Massaof historians, intellectuals, artists, activists and former parliamentarians”. Among the artists who have joined the appeal so far there are Leo Gullotta, Sabina Guzzanti e Moni Ovadia.