La Spezia, “Remembrance Day” and unveiling of Pietro di stumble

La Spezia, “Remembrance Day” and unveiling of Pietro di stumble

This morning, during a press conference at Palazzo Civico, two important initiatives organized on the occasion of the "Memorial Day" and the unveiling of “Stumbling Stones” located in the city. The initiatives were illustrated by the Mayor of La Spezia Pierluigi Peracchini and the councilor for toponymy Maria Grazia Frijia, the Prefect of La Spezia Maria Luisa Inversivi and the Police Commissioner Lilia Fredella, the President of the City Council Salvatore Piscopo and Doriana Ferrato, President of ANED La Spezia.

“Celebrations on the occasion of Remembrance Day are a very important moment for all of us – declares the Mayor of La Spezia Pierluigi Peracchini – the institutions' duty is to preserve the historical memory of the Shoah so that what happened is never repeated again, just as it is our duty to remember the people who were victims of National Socialism and for this reason, in collaboration with ANED, with the laying of the stones stumbling block we want to leave a tangible sign in our city so as to never forget the suffering of that tragic page in our history. It is only through the study of the history of our past that we can read and understand our present and it is thanks to the knowledge of the biographies of those who were captured and killed for trying to leave us a better world that the young generations will be able to build a future of hope. ”

Friday 26 January is the day for the celebration of "Memorial Day" , the day established by resolution 60/7 of the United Nations General Assembly of 1 November 2005, during the 42nd plenary meeting and dedicated to commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, will begin at 9 am at the “2 June” complex, Viale A Ferrari where three wreaths will be placed on the monument to the fallen in the Nazi extermination camps (prefecture, municipality and province) and one wreath on the commemorative plaque in memory of the period of violence and torture, affixed to the wall of the former barracks.

Followed at 10am in Passeggiata Morin a wreath will be placed at the Monument to Political Deportees.

Subsequently in Via XX Settembre, at the Prefecture Palace, a wreath will be placed at the plaque in memory of the PS officials and guards deported to the extermination camps.

At 11 am in Sala Dante (via U. Bassi) an extraordinary municipal council meeting will take place during which the medals of honor will be awarded to family members of ex-deportees by the Prefect of La Spezia HE Maria Luisa Inversini. The winners of the scholarship will then be announced “Cetrelli-Revere” by the ANED President Prof. Doriana Ferrato.

The 29am unveiling ceremony will take place on Monday 10 January at 9am “Stumbling Stones” placed in the city in memory of the victims deported to the extermination camps.

In July 2023, with an act sanctioned by a council resolution, the Peracchini Administration joined the "Stumbling Stones" project, proposed by the ANED association of La Spezia which consists of incorporating stone blocks covered with a brass plate placed on the upper face with essential information on the victim in question into the road pavement, in front of the last homes of deportation victims or in another significant place. The Stumbling Stones are therefore intended for all victims of National Socialism, anyone who was persecuted or murdered by the Nazis between 1933-1945.

The Municipality of La Spezia has therefore joined, by making adequate technical and logistical support available, the proposal put forward by the National Association of Former Deportees in the Nazi Camps of La Spezia - ANED - to create and spread the Stumbling Stones in the La Spezia area, building a memory common of Nazi persecutions, through the direct request of the family members of the deported to whom the Stones would be dedicated.

The beginning of the ceremony is scheduled for 10 am in Piazza Garibaldi, 2 and will then continue in via Roma, 106, via De Nobili, 79, via del Mille at the corner of Corso Cavour. We will then move to the Migliarina district at 11,30 in Corso Nazionale on the corner of Via Parma, again in Corso Nazionale, 348 and finally in Via Buonviaggio on the corner of Via Sarzana near Largo Marcantone. The route follows the positioning of the stumbling blocks dedicated to the memory of:

FERNANDO BECONCINI, AGOSTINO VIRDIS, GIOTTO PESCHIERA, VITRUVIO RICCIARDI, ELVIRA FINZI, DARIO DERCHI, RIGHETTI UMBERTO ALFONSO, ALFREDO PAGANINI and AMELIA GIARDINI PAGANINI.

The La Spezia Police Headquarters also joined the project by placing 4 Stumbling Blocks in front of the entrance to the building in via XX Settembre n. 6, former police headquarters, in memory of the policemen deported to the Nazi extermination camps. The stones will be named in memory of LUDOVICO VIGILANTE, NICOLA AMODIO, ANNIBALE TONELLI, DOMENICO TOSETTI

The stumbling blocks were born from an initiative by the German artist Gunter Demnig to deposit in the urban fabric of European cities the widespread memory of the citizens deported to the Nazi extermination camps. They are small square blocks of stone covered with brass measuring 10*10*9 cm, to which a brass plaque is applied on the upper side on which they are engraved name, year of birth, date and place of deportation and date of death of the deportee to whom the stone is dedicated

The stumbling blocks are small monuments that aim to restore the dignity of human beings to those who were killed, make us reflect on the horror of what happened and to ensure that what happened never happens again. To date, over 56.000 Stumbling Stones have been placed in numerous European countries, making it the largest monument widespread on European territory.

PUBLIC SECURITY OFFICER

Domenico Tosetti was born in La Spezia on 2 May 1924 and in 1942, at just eighteen years old, he began working at the police station. Soon he begins to help the officials Vigilante and Amodio in providing aid to the persecuted and the Jews.

On 18 October 1944 he was ambushed and, catching him when he was unarmed, given that he was a very robust boy, he was arrested and taken to the barracks in via XX Settembre, headquarters of the National Republican Guard. There he finds his accuser. After being tied hand and foot, Tosetti was repeatedly beaten and locked in a cell for twenty-six days.

Together with the two officials and the guard Annibale Tonelli is taken first to the Marassi prison in Genoa, and then to the concentration camp in Bolzano and then to Mauthausen.

There he was subjected to forced labor, carrying stone boulders up the "sadly famous death staircase", where numerous deportees lost their lives.

Equipped with extraordinary strength, he also managed to help, when not observed, more than a few deportees in difficulty,
He managed to survive and return home on February 4, 1945.

ANNIBALE TONELLI PUBLIC SECURITY AGENT

Annibale Tonelli, di Domenico, was born in La Spezia on 18 February 1913.

At just sixteen he enlisted in the Corps of Public Security Agents, and in 1940 he applied to join the Expeditionary Force (Police) in Albania.

In 1940 he was transferred to the command of Tirana in Albania, where he distinguished himself with some operations on the Greek-Albanian front
Once the Albanian experience was over, he returned to Italy and on 6 October 1943 he presented himself at his home office in the Spezia Police Headquarters.
He is assigned to the Migliarina PS Office where he begins his collaboration with Commissioner Vigilante, in providing aid to those persecuted by the fascist regime and to citizens of the Jewish religion. Having discovered his activity, he was arrested by the fascist soldiers of the GNR (Republican National Guard) as he left his home on his way to the office.

PS agent Annibale Tonelli was part of the great and tragic roundup of the Migliarina district, carried out by the fascists and the "SS" on 22 and 23 November 1944.

Like all the other arrestees, he was taken to the cells of the XXI Infantry barracks and then transported to Genoa, locked in the holds of the motorboats that left for Genoa at night.

After a few days in the Marassi prison, Tonelli was transported to the Bolzano concentration camp, ending his journey in the Mauthausen extermination camp where he died on 31 March 1945.

BECONCINI Fernando deported

Born in Fucecchio (FI) on 31 March 1902, married to Linari Amalia, he had 2 children Giancarlo and Angiolo, a merchant by profession.
Arrested in the Migliarina roundup on 21 November 1944 on charges of supplying supplies to the partisans.

Imprisoned in the Marassi prison in Genoa, then transferred to the Bolzano concentration camp and then deported on 14 December 1944 (transport 111) to the Mauthausen camp with the serial number 113987 and with the red triangle of political opponents.

He was then transferred to the Melk sub-camp where he was murdered on 2 March 1945.

Card drawn up by his son Beconcini Angiolo

LODOVICO VIGILANTE COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC SECURITY

Commissioner Lodovico Vigilante was born in Verona on 13 June 1882.

On 21 April 1909, after obtaining a degree in law, he joined the City Guard Corps and, having been among the first in the competition ranking, he was appointed public security delegate.

After various offices and assignments throughout Italy, among which we remember the flying squad of Livorno and Naples, and the management of important police stations, in which he distinguished himself for his investigative ability, in 1929 he received the order to go on a mission in island of Lipari, to take over the management of the Police Colony for those confined for political reasons.

On 27 October 1930 he received the honor of Knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy.

At the end he is assigned to the Avellino Police Headquarters and from there to the Potenza Police Headquarters. He is sent by the police commissioner to Muro Lucano where there is ongoing unrest among agricultural workers.

In January 1932 he was then assigned to the Sassari Police Headquarters where he spent a painful period due to the death of his wife after a long illness. After this event he asks to be able to return "to the continent" and is therefore transferred to La Spezia.

The Police Commissioner assigns him the direction of the Police Office of Migliarina - Scalo Marittimo, a very important and prestigious police post also because it has jurisdiction over the entire port area. In this role, he soon acquired the respect and sympathy of the people of the neighborhood and established a relationship of solidarity with the clergy. His collaborative activity with the CLN is confirmed by various testimonies.

The Supervising Commissioner in that period carried out a very important activity in providing passes and legal documents with false identities to try to help citizens in political and social difficulty and make them expatriate towards Switzerland. Some meetings regarding the people to be helped took place in the sacristy of the church of San Giovanni Battista in the Migliarina district of which Don Giovanni Bertoni was parish priest.

On November 23, 1944, Commissioner Lodovico Vigilante, who had already been ill for several months due to a stroke that left him partially paralyzed, was arrested.

His precarious state of health did not prevent the SS from arresting him, beating him and deporting him to Mauthausen where he was assigned to the Gusen sub-camp which was the one reserved for invalids.

Lodovico Vigilante, after unspeakable suffering, died on 28 February 1945.

NICOLA AMODIO COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC SECURITY

Nicola Amodio was born in Pizzo Calabro, in the province of Reggio Calabria, on 26 November 1898. Passionate about his studies, he obtained his high school diploma, but his desire to start university came to a sudden halt because he was called up for service military.

Once the conflict was over, he returned to his unit in Rome, where he was discharged in 1920 and on 1 November 1923 in Paris he was awarded the "Commemorative Medal of the Great War" for having distinguished himself on the front for courage and determination.
Marshal Amodio's preparation, culture, seriousness, precision, command and staff management skills meant that he participated in the competition for PS Officer Cadets, coming 6th in the ranking, thus being appointed commander of 3 XNUMXst class in the Police Corps

Nicola Amodio was soon assigned to the La Spezia police station by the Ministry of the Interior, in consideration of the agitated situation in the Ligurian province, resulting from the well-rooted anti-fascist sentiments present here.

In fact, it is necessary to send a reliable employee and the choice falls on the young former Army second lieutenant. Amodio will join the National Fascist Party (PNF), a sort of mandatory "toll" for the continuation of his career which, however, does not in any way affect his extraordinary human and moral qualities.

In fact, the official discreetly begins to deal with the preparation of documents useful for the expatriation of some patriots.

And in fact, shortly thereafter, the secretary of the fascist party presses the head of the province more and more vigorously about Amodio's unreliability.

Amodio was, in fact, arrested on 23 November 1944, and the story was told by his son, who was sixteen years old at the time.

The boy says that during detention, Amodio was subjected to torture, with the aim of extorting from him the names of colleagues who were part of the CLN. Nicola Amodio died on 4 February 1945.

Deported: DERCHI Dario

Born in La Spezia on 18 August 1893, resident in Via Roma 106, he worked as a trader in the city centre.
Married to Clotilde (Tilde), Alfredo's father.

On 25 November 1944 he was arrested in La Spezia on charges of supplying food to the partisan forces. He was imprisoned in the XXI Infantry Regiment barracks in La Spezia, which after 8 September 1943 became a fascist prison and place of torture of the Italian Social Republic.

Transferred first to the Marassi prison in Genoa, then to the Bolzano concentration camp until 01 February 1945.

Deported from Bolzano on 1 February 1945 to the Mauthausen camp where he arrived on 4 February 1945 (transport no. 119) where he was assigned the serial number 126164 with the red triangle of political opponents.

From the main camp at Mauthausen he was transferred to the sub-camp at Gusen where he was murdered on 7 March 1945.

Card compiled by Federico Derchi, nephew of the deported

Deported: FINZI Elvira

Born in Correggio, of a Jewish family, married in a civil ceremony in 1911 to a widower, Bertani Guglielmo; she then moved to La Spezia because her husband was employed in the established Società Cerpelli (later Termomeccanica Italiana); he will die in 1942.

During the war he managed a newspaper kiosk in Piazza Cavour since it was one of the few activities that citizens of the Jewish religion could carry out.

On 2 February 1944 she was arrested by two Italians, presumably the Black Brigades, who got out of a Balilla in front of the newsstand, as per the verbal testimony of my mother Vittoria, who died in 2008, and my sister Elvira, over eighty and now infirm.
Sent to the Fossoli camp, on 22 February she was deported to Auschwitz with transport no. 8 (the same as Primo Levi) where she was murdered on February 26, the day of her arrival in the camp, as per the data reported below from the Jewish Documentation Center (CDEC) file.

Card compiled by his nephew Bertani Guglielmo

CDEC data sheet Milano

Finzi, Elvira. Biographical information

• Date of birth: 16/08/1873
• Place of birth: Correggio
• Date of death: 26/02/1944

Persecution. Elvira Finzi, daughter of Leone Finzi and Vittoria Sacerdoti was born in Italy in Correggio on 16 August 1873.
Arrested in La Spezia (La Spezia). She was deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp. She did not survive the Shoah.

• Place of arrest: La Spezia
• Date of arrest: 02/02/1944
• Place of detention: FOSSOLI camp
• Collection place: FOSSOLI field
• Fate: Died in an extermination camp
• Convoy number: convoy no. 08, FOSSOLI camp 22/02/1944
• Departure date of the convoy: 22/02/1944
• Arrival date of the convoy: 26/02/1944
• Destination camp: Auschwitz
• Serial number: S

PAGANINI Alfredo deported

He was born in La Spezia on 14 August 1918, son of Amelia Giardini and brother of Bianca and Bice.

Graduating in medicine at the University of Genoa, anti-fascist, he joined the Justice and Freedom movement after 8 September and worked together with his older brother Alberto in the fourth operational area under the command of Colonel Fontana.

Having gone into the city to procure medicines for the partisan post, he was surrounded by fascists in Piazza Garibaldi, perhaps due to a spy, and arrested on 2 July 1944.

Detained in the Villa Andreino prison (number 418) in La Spezia and then in Genoa in the student residence, where he was tortured, he was transported to Fossoli, then to Bolzano, to Dachau, to Flossemburg and finally to the Hersbruck sub-camp where he was killed by beaten on 6 December 44 with serial number 21597.

Card compiled by her niece Anna Maria Mori

PAGANINI GIARDINI Amelia deported

He was born in La Spezia on 30 May 1882 into a middle-class family.
Married Paganini, mother of five children, is president of Catholic women and Youth Protection in her city and never joined the fascist party.

Widowed in 1938, at the outbreak of the war, she moved her family to San Benedetto to defend themselves from the bombings and after 8 September she offered hospitality and help to the partisans in her home.

On the night between 2 and 3 July 44 she was arrested together with her daughters Bianca and Bice as a consequence of the capture of her son Alfredo, a partisan like her other eldest son Alberto.

Incarcerated in Villa Andreino (serial number 419), then transferred to the Bolzano Camp, she was deported there, together with her daughters, to the Ravensbruck women's camp where she was assigned serial number 77394.
He died in this camp on 1 January 1945 (approximate date)

Card compiled by her niece Anna Maria Mori

PESCHIERA Giotto deported

Born in Fornovo Taro (PR) on 14 August 1924, unmarried. He lived in Corso Nazionale n°61 (now Via Paolucci de' Calboli, n.6) in La Spezia.

Station chief at the Migliarina station was arrested on 15 October 1944 by the Black Brigades (War and Captains) and falsely accused of collaboration with the partisan formations

After his arrest he was incarcerated in the XXI Infantry barracks in La Spezia, which became, after 8 September 1943, a fascist prison and place of torture for the Italian Social Republic.

Transferred first to the Marassi prison in Genoa on 8 December 1944, subsequently to the Bolzano concentration camp on 14 January 1945 until 01 February 1945, when he was deported to Mauthausen, identified with serial number no. 114062, then transferred to Melk where he was murdered on 8 March 1945.

Card compiled by his nephew Mancini Maurizio

RICCIARDI Vitruvius deported

Ricciardi Vitruvio was born in Vezzano Ligure (SP) on 07/02/1927. He moved with his family to La Spezia, in via Lunigiana 525.
He works as a worker at OTO MELARA in La Spezia.

He was captured during the roundup in Migliarina on 24 November 1944, and taken to the XXI Infantry barracks in La Spezia which became, after 8 September 1943, a fascist prison and place of torture of the Italian Social Republic.

He is interrogated and tortured and then transported to the Marassi prison in Genoa. Here, after suffering further torture, he was loaded onto transport no. 119 of 1 February 1945 bound for Bolzano.

Unfortunately, no traces remain of his passage and stay in Bolzano as most of the registers were burned by the Germans themselves to erase evidence.

Deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp, he arrived there on February 04, 1945, identified with serial number no. 126389, then transferred, like many young people, to the Gusen 2 subcamp, forced to work in the Bergkristal granite quarry where he died on 18 April 1945.

Card compiled by her niece Arzà Ilaria

Deported: RIGHETTI Umberto Alfredo

Born in Bracelli (SP) on 26 March 1892, married to Zita Calzetta, he had 2 children Giorgio and Arnaldo. He lived in Piazza Garibaldi 2 in La Spezia. Having emigrated to Scotland as a young man, he returned to Italy for military service in the Navy in 1914.

He will marry Zita and open a dairy in Piazza Garibaldi, which will become a shelter and a "canteen" for those displaced during the war.

The fascists, in search of their son Giorgio, a partisan, went to the house of Alfredo and Zita, began to interrogate them and were arrested on 8 August 1944 by the Black Brigades, who burgled the shop and the house.

Conducted with his wife to Villa Andreino (serial number 648) where they remained until 25 September, then they were taken to Marassi and finally to Bolzano (serial number 4823) as political prisoners, where his wife Zita remained until the liberation.

Deported on 20 November 1944 (transport no. 104) to Mauthausen, registered with serial number 110388, he was then transferred to Gusen where he was murdered on 6 January 1945.

Card compiled by Righetti's niece Giuliana

VIRDIS Agostino deported

Born in Sorso (Sassari) on 18/2/1896. Mutilated in the First World War, married to Benedetta Gaeta, he had three children: Antonio, Iole and Silvio. He lived in Corso Nazionale n°61 (now Via Paolucci de 'Calboli, n.6) in La Spezia.

He was an archivist clerk at Direct Taxes, councilor of the National Association of War Mutilated and Invalids, founding member of the White Cross Public Assistance of Riomaggiore 1921. He never supported any political formation.

Arrested on 22 March 1944, he was incarcerated in the XXI infantry barracks in La Spezia, which became, after 8 September 1943, a fascist prison and place of torture of the Italian Social Republic.

Transferred first to the Marassi prison in Genoa, then on 13 January 1945 to the Bolzano concentration camp (serial number no. 8226) until 1 February 1945 when he was deported with transport no. 119 to Mauthausen, identified with serial number 126492 and then transferred to the Gusen sub-camp where he died on 17 March 1945.

Card compiled by her niece Virdis Elisabetta