The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella arrived at the Resistance Park in Cuneo for the April 25 celebrations accompanied by the Minister of Defense Crosetto and the Chief of Defense Staff Giuseppe Cavo Dragone.
The President laid a laurel wreath at the monument by sculptor Umberto Mastroianni in memory of the Resistance, pausing for a moment of reflection.
“If you want to go on a pilgrimage to the place where our Constitution was born, go to the mountains where the partisans fell, to the prisons where they were imprisoned, to the camps where they were hanged, wherever an Italian died, to redeem freedom and dignity: go there, young people, with your thoughts, because our Constitution was born there”. It is Piero Calamandrei who addresses these words to a group of young students at the Società Umanitaria, in Milan, in 1955”. This was said by President Sergio Mattarella speaking from Cuneo on the occasion of April 25.
"And it is here then, in Cuneo, in the land of the 34 Gold Medals for military valor and of the 174 recipients of the Silver Medal, of the 228 Bronze Medals for the Resistance. The land of the twelve thousand partisans, of the two thousand fallen in combat and of the two thousand six hundred victims of the Nazi-Fascist massacres. It is here that the Republic celebrates its roots today, celebrates the Liberation Day", said Mattarella.
“The Resistance was first and foremost a moral uprising of patriots against fascism for national redemption. A popular movement that involved the older generation of anti-fascists,” said the president.
“The list of the towns hit in the Cuneo area composes a painful litany and sounds like a prayer. I want to remember them. They were decorated with gold, silver or bronze medals, or with war crosses: Cuneo, the entire Province, Alba, Boves, Borgo San Dalmazzo, Dronero; Clavesana, Peveragno, Cherasco, Busca, Costigliole Saluzzo, Genòla, Trinità, Venasca, Ceva, Pamparato; Mondovì, Priola, Castellino Tanaro, Garessio, Roburent, Paesana, Narzòle, Rossana, Savigliano; Barge, San Damiano Macra, Villanova Mondovì. The Republic bows to the memory of the victims and the suffering of the inhabitants,” said Mattarella.
“The crisis of the country required a decisive moment, for a new idea of community, after the failure of the previous one. It was a question of transfusing the authentic soul of the Nation into the State. Of giving life to a new Italy. Commitment and promise fulfilled in these 75 years of republican Constitution. A Republic founded on the Constitution, daughter of the anti-fascist struggle”.
"The struggle to ensure Italy's survival in the catastrophe to which fascism had led was hard. Soldiers from other countries helped us, becoming friends and solid allies: many of them are buried in Italy," said the president.
“As the plaque affixed to the Town Hall of this city states, on the eighth anniversary of Galimberti's killing, if ever opponents of freedom were to reappear on these streets they would find patriots. As it is written: “dead and alive with the same commitment, people gathered around the monument that is now and always called Resistance,” the president affirmed.
At the end of the ceremony on April 25, the President of the Republic Mattarella, flanked by the Minister of Defense Crosetto, once again received military honors and listened to the national anthem once more. Subsequently, President Mattarella greeted with a handshake the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa, the President of the Chamber Lorenzo Fontana and the President of the Constitutional Court Silvana Sciarra, lingering for a brief exchange of words at the foot of the Altar of the Fatherland. The Head of State left Piazza Venezia. He is then expected in Piedmont for the celebrations of the 78th anniversary of the Liberation.
