Veltroni: "The places of Fascism are no longer a taboo "
ROME
The discovery of the last bunker of the Duce, in the Palazzo Venezia, is a first for her, Walter Veltroni, who was mayor of Rome?
“I do not know anything about it and the news hit me. Especially because it tells of fragility Italian, which is the effort to come to terms with the past. How is it possible that the bunker has remained hidden for almost seventy years? It is because we have turned the page of fascism without having metabolized and understood. And so we continue to conceal the physical traces of the two decades. “
And we fear of revisionism.
“Let’s make an introduction: I am against historical revisionism and political worlds. Fascism was condemned without appeal and his sentence is written in the Constitution. Fascism and dictatorships are pure evil. Those who, like Berlusconi, said that Mussolini was good apart from the racial laws, or stuff like that, it does so with cunning morally unacceptable. That regime has denied the fundamental rights, attended and contributed to the folly of Auschwitz, it is appended to the war the Germans. I am against fascism without ifs and buts. But the story is not made of demolition of objects. “
That?
” or if now came a new religion to raze the signs of those who went before. We live in a stupid eternal present. The story delivers its products, its art, its architecture to posterity that they may have consciousness and memory of their civilization. It seems absurd that we continue to hide two decades that is tragic part of our history.
What do you mean?
“I’ve often assist in this removal. In the main hall of the cones there is a picture of Luigi Montanarini called Apotheosis of fascism. Since the war was covered with a green cloth. I offered to take it off and looked at me with amazement and relief because, as are left, I was suspected of nostalgia. Now the painting is visible.
Is it good?”It’s not up to me to make an aesthetic judgment. I was Minister of Culture, though, and I had the duty of safeguarding of assets. You should delete the genius of Leni Riefenstahl only because he was the director of the Fuehrer or Soviet films or raze the Red Square because it was the site of Stalin’s triumph?
We are ashamed of fascism because they were involved in many?
“It may be. But if this is so is a mistake. The dawn of fascism – we have explained Renzo De Felice, Claudio Pavone, Emilio Gentile albeit with different accents – has won a whole generation of young people who then made the history of resistance and democracy. I think Carlo Lizzani to Pietro Ingrao, Piero Calamandrei, but the list would fill pages. It is the Italian history, in its entirety, we need to understand. Fascism was a product of the tragic political and institutional collapse, not an accident of history.
And then take care of the symbols and places of fascism demitizza them.
“It ‘s so. I remember a visit to the Palazzo Venezia. The hall of the globe, where he worked as the Duce, was not even mentioned. The balcony was obscured by a black screen. But what’s the point? That balcony is not a fetish, but it’s a square meter on which you made the story, a tragic story. Removing symbols of errors is the best way to repeat them.
Are not you afraid that you banalizzerebbe then that balcony?
“No. The balcony, which was exclusive of the tyrant, must become the balcony of all, the balcony of democracy. You must go and you must look at the square as he saw Mussolini June 10, 1940, when he declared war and the cheering crowd threw their hats in the air. Not to forget what it was. “
In fact, she wanted the restoration of Villa Torlonia, the private residence of Mussolini.
And Villa Torlonia is no longer the place of myth. Children go cycling along the paths that ran through Mussolini on horseback. You go to eat pizza in limonaia. However, if one has the passion, go and see if the eyes of the historian. The villa was dilapidated. We did put the few remaining furniture, including the bed of Mussolini. Or the designs of the American soldiers who occupied it. And now that the house is as it was, one can not really grasp the idea that disgust the Duce did breakfast in the garden while our soldiers were dying of cold in Russia.
What is there to do?
“Very much. Beginning with the recovery of the Gym fencing Luigi Moretti at the Foro Italico, which is a gem. It was reused as a classroom bunker and I’d come back if original use. Then I’d like if it were restored philologically the hall of the Globe, and the balcony was open, seventy years later. ».
It is still a taboo.
“In order to convict you need to know, historicize and rationalize, do not remove. Otherwise the horrors return.”
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