The notes of the Ukrainian anthem resounded under the arcades of Chanoux square, just after the inevitable «Bella ciao», in the closing concert of the celebrations for April 25th. A tribute from the Band of Aosta to the invaded people, the involuntary “guest” of the celebrations for the Liberation in a party that returned to the squares after two years. «Russia has attacked Ukraine and in doing so it has assumed all the ethical and political responsibility for the ensuing events, the deaths, the destructions, the feeling of danger that runs through Europe and the destabilization of the world. What we can say is stop the war and the Russians must go home. And all those who said, several years ago, “Yankee go home”, today must say “Russki idut damoi”: it means the same thing », said the national vice president of the Anpi, Alessandro Pollio Salimbeni from the stage in Piazza Chanoux.
The celebrations in the capital began with the laying of a wreath at the cemetery, and then proceeded to the garden of Remembrance: here, in addition to the civil and military authorities, also the partisan Ferdinando Mognol, with his 97 years: ” this was certainly the right day to do it ». The procession continued towards Piazza Chanoux, where part of the politics stood out for the absence: few regional councilors in the square of the capital.
From the stage, the very young people of the Giuseppe Godioz sports group of the fire brigade, dedicated to the partisan shot by the Nazi-fascists in 1944 in Leverogne, read the first six articles of the Constitution.
«There is a clear field – added Pollio Salimbeni – our history, and this day sums it all up, it is the history of those who do not need to choose, it is the history of the oppressed who rebel against oppression. In a war of aggression, which it is no coincidence that the Constitution repudiates, the victim is our brother. The violence that the aggression unleashes is all on the shoulders and conscience of those who attacked ».
A day transformed into institutional words in a continuous journey between past and present: “May the martyrs Emile Chanoux and Lino Binel induce us not to spend verbal violence on social networks behind the cowardly shield of the illuminated screens to which we are peacefully, inexorably submissive – he said the mayor of Aosta, Gianni Nuti, during his speech – that they free us from the policies of the giants of media communication, from the slavery of consumption, from unlimited enrichment, from discrimination between genders, ethnic groups, religions, from the excessive power of finance, from oblivion of the last ». The celebrations of the day symbolizing freedom touched many municipalities in the region, from Courmayeur to the Lower Valley. Even the president of the Region Erik Lavevaz underlined, in a note, how the gaze can only turn “towards the deplorable Russian aggression against Ukraine, which tests precisely those values conquered through the Resistance”.