“Eighty years after those events, we pay honor to those who fought so that democracy and freedom were part of the same project, the one that found the Constitution as the cornerstone around which Italian progress developed”. The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, wrote this in a message sent to the Institute for the History of Resistance and Contemporary Society in the Province of Asti – Israt – on the occasion of the conference for the 80th anniversary of the partisan Republic of Alto Monferrato .
The memory
“The armistice of 8 September 1943 marked a clear boundary in the history of our country, putting an end to the alliance with Nazi Germany. A new phase of the conflict began: the last 19 months of war, marked by bloody massacres, from bombings and reprisals, led to liberation from tyranny”, writes the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella. “Between the summer and autumn of 1944 – underlines the head of state – experiences were carried out in Italy that were precursors to the principles and values of our Constitutional Charter, in the form of free zones and autonomous republics, promoted by the resistance movement. The valleys of ‘Alto Monferrato did not wait helplessly for the end of the conflict but dared to challenge Nazi-fascism, laying the foundations for the exercise of forms of democratic government of the territory, giving life to the Republic Partisan of the Alto Monferrato. Experience that registered the immediate hostility of the fascist and Nazi forces, with the Koblenz-South Operation Mattarella – significant losses among partisans and civilians sent to forced labor camps in Germany, putting an end to the self-government of Alto Monferrato”.
“The Republic has awarded the Silver Medal for Military Valor to the city of Nizza Monferrato, ‘the vital center of the Alto Monferrato area’, for the patriotic virtues expressed by those populations, recognizing ‘the heroism of its partisans and the indomitable pride of its people who – he concludes – were able to govern themselves and resist the repeated attacks of the Nazi-fascist forces, inflicting serious losses on them”.