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Rating: Evil is not only in those who do it: it is also in those who, being able to prevent it, do not prevent it. Thucydides.
The human being, even though this term is debatable, has created many fascinating concepts, but has also developed equally as many bloody, inhuman, and horrifying ones like war.
A unique book. A piece of real history, transfigured by the author who took shelter under the name of Italo Serri.
“- Serri! - shouted Reitani's voice as the doctor rushed towards the captain, who was glimpsed in the blackish curtain. - Are you hurt? - screamed Serri, trying to make himself heard despite the other mortar rounds crashing among the pieces. - No, run to the fourth piece, someone is wounded! - answered the captain and immediately shouted: - Dell'Alpe, ammunition!”
Bedeschi loved to define himself as an alpine soldier, doctor, and writer. A medical officer of the Julia division, he experienced the drama of the Armir, transposed in “Cento Mila Gavette di Ghiaccio”, his most authoritative book.
“Serri covered the chest, stood up. - He's dead - he said to the gunners who looked at him amazed, not yet understanding. - He's dead - he repeated to himself, seized by sudden impotent rage; and moved to the second stretcher.”
A literary work to read rather than attempt to describe. A choral experience, lived by the entire Julia division along with its mules. Every page, word, thought, and situation, is a lash. Everything is overwhelmed by pain, by hunger and cold, capable of shattering flesh and bones, veins and lives. Death almost becomes a relief from the unspeakable suffering that often exceeds the limits of human endurance.
The column marched
sinking up to the knee
in the white vastness
of their own grave
You almost feel pierced by every narrated event, from beginning to end.
“- No one comes out anymore! At the stations, it is forbidden to lean out! - the imperious voices ordered; - close the window panes! - What's the matter? - began to shout from inside the carriages. - We're not beasts! - Open! Open! - the alpine soldiers screamed, lowering the panes and shaking the handles in vain again. - We are in Italy!”
The dramas experienced should be summarized, hoping they never occur again. War is always lurking, even in other contexts. It will only sublimate when a revolution occurs in the DNA “of the human being”. Yes! But when? It's necessary to point out the suggestive as much as the dramatic photographs. I'll mention a few.
Slopes of Golico: “the best youth - that goes underground...”.
One of the excavations to create the seventeen underground shelters.
“… the trunks … immediately became supporting columns and lintels of the future quarters ...”.
October '42, Kuwschin area, near the Don. Captain Reitani's mare at the officers' mess.
The alpine gunners of the thirteenth share their meal with the Russian prisoner soldiers.
“The men were blind, mute, living only for their own pain: life had its beginning and end only in the step.”
I dedicate this writing to my grandfather, whom I never met. His teeth were cracked from the cold, he said he had his arms frozen, but a Russian peasant woman saved his life by sheltering him in her Izba. Of his Battalion, which was sent to Russia, only two returned home.
One was my grandfather.
F©
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