ROMA (ITALPRESS) – “Today Italy honors the memory of the compatriots killed on 18 August 1946 on the beach of Vergarolla, in the most serious and bloody massacre in the history of republican Italy. A carnage that has fallen into oblivion for decades and has been returned to the collective memory thanks to the unsatisfactory commitment of the Italian community of Pula, exiles, their descendants and associations.” Thus the President of the Council, Giorgia Meloni, on the occasion of the eighteenth anniversary of the massacre of Vergarolla.
“What happened eighty years ago on the beach in Pula still represents an unpunished crime. Tens and dozens of innocent civilians – men, women and children – were killed according to a macabre design, while attending a sporting event. Never ascertain the authors, identify the senders, clarify the purposes. To seek the truth remains the main way to make the victims fully justice and to reveal what, still today, we do not know of this dark page of the twentieth century,” he continues.
“What is certain is that the massacre of Vergarolla marked one of the most dramatic moments of that season of violence, contributing decisively to the decision of most Italians to leave Pula and take the path of the exodus,” Meloni recalls. “From the abyssal darkness of that massacre emerged the light of a hero: Geppino Micheletti, doctor of the hospital in Pula who continued to operate the wounded and the mutilated of the explosion even after knowing that among the dead were also his brother, sister-in-law and his two children, 9 and 5 years old. A luminous example of humanity, courage and self-denial, recognized by President Mattarella with the Gold Medal of Public Health,” he said.
“Even in its name and in that of all the victims of Vergarolla the Italian Government will continue its commitment to 360 degrees to guard and hand down the memory of the complex events linked to the eastern border. Terrible and painful pages, for too long silent but which today belong to the national and European memory”, concludes the premier.
(ITALPRESS).
– photos: Ipa Agency –
