I enter with a story born spontaneously after participating in the poignant ceremony in January at its rise DVE the monument.
so I called 'cause ... will find out by reading.
few times, when I write, use the imperfect.
I know one thing in half, not entirely complete, slightly melancholy. A time consuming
on which one could, perhaps, have second thoughts, a time that generates remorse and regret.
For these facilities, the needs of small stories about this time, his wounds still open and a piece of history, like ours, that it deserved some other epilogues.
Last Saturday I was well under my quilt, conveniently placed on Berg blue of my living room but the clock is hard on those who would not want to but must make a move.
Nearly two in the afternoon.
I had to overcome laziness, I had to get up, I had to shake me from my slumber ... I had him.
It was a Saturday raid on the mall with attached chocolate and cream together with a friend to talk about men.
an afternoon to devote to the emotion, the classic "knot" that is even if you do not want you and it seems impossible that sixty-six years to exact from each other, there is someone who undertakes to reconnect to those desperate that I had only a faded postcard in hand, drawn by the brochure inviting me to the ceremony.
Nicolajewka, January 26, 1943 ... and I was wondering, marching in procession behind the banners of dozens of associations Carabinieri ... but I got to do what? Never
afternoon better spent, a lesson of history, heroism and humanity that I could easily learn from books or by Piero Angela.
The opportunity we had been given the blessing by Chaplain Don Rino at this monument is erected in Verona, the only one in Italy dedicated to the Battle of Nikolajewka and have them 'I started to wonder why nobody had thought in the years to the dead remained there, in that passage of red brick, in the desert, halfway between the Don and Donez on that afternoon in a terrible Russian winter, at the same time that I'm here now in a world completely different from then. I
surrounded by Alpine, with shining eyes, proud representatives of the Divisions who defended the Russian advance to the last.
There was also the band that sharpened communal atmosphere and made it more sad that I could not. A simple march of trumpets, drums and trombones had many small phalanges who pulled away the tears from under his sunglasses. A General
explains the events but it is so involved that can not make it to expose the bare facts.
On January 17, by which time the Russian army was closing in on the Germans, Italians, Hungarians and all the Allies in the typical bag, their famous military strategy, the removal order came finally to our who were battling not let go, with great difficulty, with old-fashioned means of the First World War, guns carried by tractors and clothes made from a material derived from cheese, crumbled and froze on contact with skin.
That was the cloth, so 'called in military jargon.
Covered with rags, covered with rags.
In a mouth that is unbelievable, our Mountain, the last to have stood up to the Russians who were advancing with their T34 and become frozen on the Don highway of death for us, link up Nikolajewka, which passed, would have been saved and free to return to Italy.
So begins' the long ordeal of the road day and night in the snow with little to eat, with hand grenades stuffed into every nook and cranny of their poor equipment, one rifle and pretend to take with you as possible. The division remained in long parallel rows to walk 50 feet away from each other in order to help in case of enemy attack, aided by the glare of the snow that acts as a lighthouse. One after another, with one hand on the shoulder of those who do not get lost before, pray and leave many testaments to their friends. Chaplains
Of the twenty, thirteen will die in the desert, stopping to give relief to the injured who can no longer did, knowing that they can not turn back.
the day and were shot at night, in shifts of three hours, slept piled nelle baite sparse sul percorso.
Dieci giorni di inferno, incalzati dai Russi che li accerchiavano, scavalcando le truppe che si erano arrese al Nemico e bivaccavano a zonzo qua e là, senza più un obbiettivo. Ma loro, questi 60.000 alpini, la meta ce l’avevano ben presente: Nikolajewka era la loro salvezza.
Passato quell’ostacolo, si andava a casa.
La guerra era persa, la disfatta era totale e loro volevano vivere.
Erano tutti ventenni o giù di lì.
Il relatore piangeva e parlava, parlava e tirava su con il naso.
Per quanto volessi essere distaccata, non potevo. In sala non volava una mosca, solo qualche colpo di tosse, per nascondere la commozione.
Ho innanzi a me le cartine militari, il puntatore dello schermo segnala le varie mosse, i nomi dei villaggi raggiunti e superati e una lucina rossa ci aspetta la’, a Nikolajewska come se ci stessimo andando di nuovo, stremati, distrutti dal freddo e dalla stanchezza, dalla fame, dalla disperazione, dal desiderio di uscire dall’incubo.
E fu lì che in un atto estremo, dettato da quell’energia, l’ultima, che non sai di avere, i quasi sessantamila uomini dell’Esercito Italiano, nei loro panni grigio-verdi, irrompono come furie animalesche dentro al tunnel, sopra, a lato, scavalcano i corpi fucilati che si ammassavano alla velocità della luce e in un urlo gigantesco che mi pareva di sentire, vincono l’unica battaglia, annientano il Nemico e oltrepassano il villaggio, liberi.
Eroi dimenticati, fino a oggi.
Nei programmi scolastici non si arriva nemmeno lontanamente a studiare queste date della battaglia ma non per questo non è accaduto.
I Russi riconobbero l’onore al Nemico e lo trattarono con rispetto, decretando Nicolajewka l’unica loro sconfitta ad appannaggio degli Italiani.
Sabato scorso ho odiato la guerra come non mai, ho maledetto le scelte avventate di chi c’era e non ha capito niente, gli astrusi desideri di conquista, la pazzia di chi pensò di potercela fare, avendo tutto il mondo contro quando fu necessario invece il coraggio umile di questi ragazzi che non videro più nulla se non la vita che forse, se erano lucky, they could continue to drive.
fall only a few translated
... Of the two hundred and fifty thousand troops deployed on-Don, went back seventeen thousand.
Now we are done.
Near me sat a veteran, one of the twenty living in Verona. I looked at the very moment the description of dynamics. He had even more eyes.
His face was transformed, he was still '.
My God, what a mess that we are able to disaster if we combine commitment, we men ... Then
and 'a little miracle happened. The veterans gathered in a van that would take them back home and I went up to greet them. We had become
friends in a jiffy.
Their smiles, their handshakes still vigorous, vibrant and serene gaze of those who have seen and have not forgotten, their voices overlapped almost happy I have suggested one word: forgiveness.
It is no coincidence that it seemed reasonable to write in capital letters all the players of this fact, Italians, Germans, Russians. Poles. Hungarians, Enemies, Allies.
"There are just wars. There is a respect for winners and losers, united by the desire of the conquest of Peace", so it was written.
The imperfect tense is over. I go back to the present, happy to accompany anyone who wants it on the marble steps of the monument, a simple tunnel che in Russia non c’è nemmeno più.
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