Simonetta Strada: “A year without Gino but his ideas continue to speak to us”

A year later the smile remains, that of one of the last photos, released only after death. The enormous affection that arose around Emergency, her NGO, after her death. And the projects, many, including those in beloved Afghanistan, to be completed. And the voice of Gino Strada is back, more powerful than ever. The Milanese surgeon died exactly one year ago, on August 13, 2021, in Normandy where he was on vacation with his wife, Simonetta Gola. In recent months, it was she who took back her baton and handed it over to the world. She did it in the form of a book, One person at a time, which Strada had almost finished at the time of his death, released in March by Feltrinelli and on newsstands from Saturday with Repubblica.

Mrs. Strada, a year has passed: what legacy did Gino Strada leave?
“A practical legacy first of all: a series of big projects, realized and to be realized. Emergency is making a great effort to go on without him. But I believe that the real legacy is the idea that the world can be changed , that it is worth continuing to believe in it and to do what is right, even when it is difficult. One person at a time, in fact “.

It is the title of the book: Did you choose it together?
“No. The title was supposed to be another, but I changed it after his death. I didn’t want this to sound like something that looks back, because it isn’t. It’s a book of struggle, in which Gino puts the two together. who had understood in life: that war must never be fought and that health is a universal right. We chose that title one evening at dinner, with friends and colleagues from Emergency: it is a phrase from the afterword, it seemed to us that best reflects what Gino has done. Saving the world one person at a time, in fact “.

In the first pages, Dr. Strada makes a reference to his father, who died when he was very young. It almost seems like a premonition …
“Gino always said that it is not the years that weigh, but the kilometers. He had an intense life and never cared: when he started doing it the situation was already complicated. He knew there was little time but this given the clarity of choosing people, battles, projects “.

The book arrived in bookstores when the war in Ukraine had just begun. On newsstands now that the conflict is moving towards a long continuation …
“In moments like these you need to hear voices like Gino’s. He had seen many wars: Iraq, Cambodia, Palestine, Eritrea, Djibouti, Rwanda, Afghanistan of course. At first he reasoned. about the reasons for each conflict, he wanted to understand. Then he came to believe that war never makes sense. And this reflection also applies to this conflict that he has not seen: no one doubts who the aggressor is and who attacks him , but Gino thought that war does not make sense in general and above all in a moment in which on the table there are instruments of self-destruction like those available to humanity today. We need a different way of thinking “.

She said, “He wasn’t a martyr.” Can you explain to us?
“When someone dies, there is always an attempt to erase his defects. Or, as in this case, to make him a martyr by recounting his exceptional dedication to work. Gino was a person with a strong tension towards justice: if he had to spending 14 hours standing in the operating room he did it, but if it wasn’t necessary he would play bridge instead. He didn’t sacrifice himself for moralism alone, he liked to live, he had much more than what the public person was. also because he cultivated the rest of his life he was a fulfilled person “.

How do you like to remember it?
“I have many memories but I keep thinking about our arrival in Normandy for that last holiday. He was very happy, it seemed to him the fulfillment of a great desire because we came from an intense and difficult period. I keep looking at the photo, the one we have spread after his death: he liked it very much because in that shot he recognized himself fully. He had become aware of who he was, of what he had done, of what he wanted. He said he was at peace with himself. everybody’s thing. This thought helped me to live with his death. “