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Monumento alla Resistenza in Sesto San Giovanni |
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An Italian Inspired Memorial Day
This past year we lost the last member of our family who had a direct relationship to Italy. Our father Armand died. He was the son of our grandmother, Epifania Trevisan, who left Italy in 1919 for America. Conceived in Italy, Nonna often said that her first child could have been born at sea! I write about the influence she had on our family in my book. Years later we traveled to Italy to reconnect with our Italian family in Milan and the Veneto and I know the closeness and affection we have for one another would not exist if it had not been for Nonna.
Armand was a tank commander in World War II and although he was silent for many years about his war time experiences, the last part of his life he talked more and more about events that have made history. Our cousins in Italy also re-lived their lives during the War with us. On one trip we visited the town of Monza, 8 miles northeast of Milan, with our cousin Lidia. She showed us the building in Monza where as a 9 year old girl she hid from the Allied bombing and the retreating Germans who were killing Italians. Another afternoon we walked through Parco Nord Milano to see a monument dedicated to the factory workers of the industrial town of Sesto San Giovanni whose resistance led to their arrest by the Nazi-Fascists and deportation to concentration camps.
Sesto is about 6 miles outside of Milan and is one of the many Italian cities decorated for Valor for the War of Liberation including Ravenna, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, Milan, Rome, Florence, Parma, Naples, Modena and Bassano di Grappa where are grandfather served as a military interpreter during World War I.
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Monumento alla Resistenza - The Wall
But Italy's memories of war affected me the most when I saw the Monumento alla Resistenza in Sesto San Giovanni. Seeing this memorial fast forwarded me to another time and place closer to home. Designed by Piero Bottoni and Polish artist Anna Praxmayer, the monument is reminiscent of the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington DC as it retraces the fight against the Fascists on a concrete wall. We took this picture of The Wall with our cousin Lidia who lives in Sesto. Located in the Piazza della Resistenza, there are 13 scenes as the wall gradually becomes higher before soaring skywards with the sculptured form of Victory freeing a flight of bronze doves. |
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