End to Mousolini (July, 1943)

The Downfall of Mussolini

On July 25, 1943, news broke that Mussolini had been toppled. This brought a wave of shared happiness that dissolved previous factions. The residents of Villa Emma joined the crowds in the local square, celebrating with local leaders including Dr. Moreali and Don Beccari. In the village, symbols of Fascism were removed, and some individuals took physical revenge on local Fascist officials. Dr. Moreali, despite being a long-time anti-Fascist, stepped in to save the life of a bloodied Fascist secretary, insisting on a just trial over a lynch mob.

From Yoshko’s Memoirs

“Going to the square in front of the Abbazia building. A mass of people streams to the place.

Our doctor Dr. Moreali is also here and his eyes sparkle with bolts of happiness. His back is straight and his steps are confident.

“Indig, caro mio (my dear), twenty years I have been yearning for this day. And it came! It is easier to breathe, fresh air all around, my dear Indig!”. Moreali seeks to instill in us all the feeling of the holiday: “Feel better in Italy that is no longer black! Get to know the real Italy! See how the people rejoice! From now on the Fascists will have to hide from the lists…”. Out of the Abbazia comes Don Beccari the friend.

Limping on his hip as always and his face glowing.

“Well, Don Beccari, how do you like this?”. “I hope that everything will end well. And how are the children now? They too are surely happy! Forgive me, I am rushing to prayer! To thank God for the downfall of the one tyrant and to pray for the advancement of the turn of the second, with God’s help!…”.

The gathering crowd grows and grows. Giant signs are waved: “Long live democracy! Death to all the Fascists!”. People huddle in groups and share impressions and assessments. Moreali paces from group to group and drops his sharp sayings. “What to do, not everything is decided according to our will and all at once. Don’t forget the mass of German soldiers stationed in Italy. One still needs to be careful. A day will come and the war will end.”.

Night. In the tavern of old Donna Martha sit the last of the guests. The people of Nonantola are cheerful. Fascists in the plural were never in Nonantola.

One of the tavern guests shouts out: “Donna Martha, porca Madonna, take down the picture of this cabbage-head!. Why didn’t our baker shoot this son of a bitch in the First World War, this disgusting chatterbox with the big maw!. You take down the picture or we take down your whole house, you whore! Do you hear, Donna Martha?”.

The old woman stands before her wild customers and does not know what to do. She wails: “Dear gentlemen, be quiet…”. The ticket-taker of the local cinema hushes in his squeaky voice: “Hush, hush!”.

And Donna Martha asks to bring her hesitations to the knowledge of the excited crowd: Is it not still too early to remove the picture… after all, one never knows…”.

In the first days of the revolution matters proceeded quietly. The police had prepared for this possibility long ago. Now the Fascist symbols disappeared and everything that reminded of the man Mussolini. Other changes were not noticeable on the surface.

Until from unclear sources the “order” spread: “The Fascists should be honored with slaps to the cheek wherever you find them!”. And thousands of faces were smacked in the city squares without interference until the police were forced to intervene and arrest the “wretched” Fascists for “protective detention”.

In Nonantola there was actually one veteran Fascist. In the past he was the secretary of the local party branch and now a clerk in the factory and also… our friend. He would come to visit us in our home, invite us to his home and shower us with good advice.

About his Fascist past we learned from Dr. Moreali. He behaved decently and his worry for his sons who were sent to the front he would relate to us with tears in his eyes. He too did not escape the judgment of the raging people.

It was a time when we returned from a trip to Modena. Seemingly nothing had changed. The British prisoner of war camp also stood in its place as of old, and only at the entrance to the village we saw a mass of people standing motionless.

We approach the place. “He received what he deserved, the Fascist pig,” one of the gathered explains to us. “Who received and what was received?”.

“This zero secretary! Finally Pietro took revenge on him! He is sprawled there in the ditch, you can see.”. The Lady (mother of Jesus) returned!.

Our Fascist friend was revealed to our eyes in the ditch, all covered in blood, a human-carcass. The celebrating crowd did not move or stir. A glow of joy was on the faces and from the eyes bolts of revenge. At the time, Pietro was arrested by the Fascist secretary and suffered a dose of torture: castor oil, pricks under the fingernails and all such as these. For years he walked without work and his family was destroyed. Ten years he dreamed of revenge and reached the awaited day.

The crowd stands silent. The blood of the beaten victim mixes with the sewage water flowing from the factory.

Dr. Moreali came. Twenty years he waited for this day. The crowd clears a path for him. Moreali raises his eyes to those standing around him and in his mouth is a request: “Friends, come, help me pull the man out of the ditch. I am a doctor and this is my duty…”.

General astonishment. No one moves. Seconds of tension. The crowd begins to retreat, to melt away, to disappear. Someone blurts out apologetic words of hesitation: “Ah… I must go home. My wife is waiting…”. Others gather courage: “Let him get up himself… let him ask for help from Mussolini…”.

Dottore Giuseppe Moreali, the veteran anti-Fascist, remains single and alone next to his blood-streaming arch-enemy. His son arrives. “Come, let’s lift the fellow.”. Moreali saves his life….

When we met he said to me: “Only not blood in the streets… a just trial—yes, but not a lynch. To sentence to hanging according to law—but not to murder. This disgust is not for the honor of our people.”.

Our own feeling was strange. The Fascists extended help to many of the persecuted of our people. High government officials saved tens of thousands of Jews. In fact, it was the Italian people who dared to defy Hitler and did not sacrifice the Jews on the altar of the Nazi-Fascist friendship. This fact was verified in Italian Foreign Ministry documents from that period that were recently exposed.”