The partisan Giovanni Marzona, known as Alfa, who would have turned 95 on January 12, died on the morning of Monday 9 January. This was announced by the president of the Anpi of Milan, Roberto Cenati, in a note where he recalled his tireless work to pass on the memory to young people with his testimony in schools. Giovanni Marzona was born in Villa Santina, where he has always maintained his residence and where he returned, during the last elections, to vote.
Coming from a family of anti-fascists, he was a child when he chose the mountains to fight. Marzona took part in the battle to free Carnia, which had become a free zone.
In a recent interview he said: “I became a partisan because one day the partisan commander of the Osoppo Brigade told me: ‘Look, we need someone like you, who knows all the mountains and knows us all. We trust you”. The commander gave me the battle name “Alfa”, which had been the name of a partisan who had died a few days earlier.
And again: “The partisan relay told me ‘if they catch you, kill yourself’. In October 1944, the Germans made a big roundup, a big roundup. Carnia was surrounded. They didn’t give us food. To get food we had to climb over the mountains going to lower Friuli. There were many moments of danger. Moments not of fear, but in which you lacked the courage to act”. “When you went to the mountains, you did it to seek your freedom. You went to die for your freedom and everyone’s freedom”.
Enrolled in the Section of Quarto Oggiaro, he was part of the Honorary Presidency of the provincial Anpi of Milan.
“He was an extraordinary person, very attached to the Anpi, to the values of the Constitution, of anti-fascism, of the Resistance – underlined Cenati -. A few years ago he had received the certificate of merit from the Municipality of Milan.
Giovanni never spared himself: he always went to schools, to pass on to young people the ideals in which he believed deeply”. «I will miss Giovanni very much, the Anpi will miss him very much, all of us. We will always remember him for his moral rectitude, his wisdom, his passion for freedom, for peace, for the creation of a better world – he concluded -. To the family members I also express on behalf of the Provincial Anpi of Milan my moved and affectionate closeness ».