This book, written by six hands, is the story of a people at war: a micro-history that fits into the framework of national history in the tragic years of the Second World War. It is the continuation and conclusion of the story of the Ierzesi at war, first in the Great War and then in the wars of the Duce, which begin with the aggression against Ethiopia, continue with participation in the war in Spain and conclude with the defeat of the Second World War. A disastrous period of collective madness, which begins in 1915 and ends in 1945: a “thirty years’ war”, as many historians claim, which sowed immense suffering. But the description of the country in the fascist era was taken care of with particular attention by Gianfranco Loi, who wrote perhaps the most intense pages on those times starting from an ancient African proverb: “Every old man who dies is comparable to a library that burns”.
Gianfranco writes: “It’s true. I interviewed many of the town’s elders and each of their stories was a birth of new emotions and new discoveries. Most of us have studied the twenty years of fascism only through history books. But books talk about great events, national and international treaties, wars, they tell of “great” characters, they do not tell the story of the most common people, those people who had to suffer, helpless, without any possibility of redemption and rebellion, a life of hardship and deprivation not only material, but also civil. Talking to the elders of the town means opening a stage and entering a world of which you perceive only a vague idea, due to some hint from your parents or because you are an occasional listener of words that our elders exchange among themselves sitting on the steps of the street or around the table of the bar or in the barber shop waiting for their turn. Jokes, few memories, “hearsay”, eyes often shining with emotion from the memory, and they can’t stand the complaints of the younger ones about life today, indeed they often mock them, albeit with a hint of bitterness: “Tui non asconnotu su famini ‘e guerra”. In the chats with these elderly people, precious for studying and understanding the twenty years of fascism, as it was experienced in Jerzu, I discovered wonderful people, with a surprising and unsuspected dignity and moral and intellectual freshness. A few targeted questions are enough to tease and stimulate them and, while you listen to their narration in religious silence, you can’t help but feel enriched by feelings and values that are being lost over time, but that live in our elderly, values that they want to pass on to us, almost as a warning not to repeat mistakes that have caused tragedies experienced first-hand, values strengthened by a difficult life of hardship, poverty, deprivation of all kinds, moral and material.”
Raffaele Serra, as in the book “Ierzesi nella Grande guerra” has curated the collection of military cards in the National Archives of Cagliari: tiring and arduous work, because the registers of the matriculation roles are often in terrible conditions and difficult to read. For this reason it was essential to check the data of the military documents with those of the municipal registry; and with the old discarded identity cards, abandoned in a room of the old Casa del Fascio and brought back from oblivion by Renato d’Ascanio, who cleaned them and made them ready to be published. Without these photos, the book would have told stories and tragedies of faceless men. Antonio Mou’s contributions on the Ierzese society in times of war are precious; the documents and stories of Rosanna Corda, Simona Mereu, Maria Mura and Nevina Usai on the imprisonment of their respective fathers in the German and American concentration camps are very interesting. Unfortunately, not everyone has shown interest in preserving historical memory, which does not belong only to the narrow nucleus of one’s family, but is part of the history of our community. History, which forms the “historical memory”, is learned and studied in critical essays written by specialists in the field, but the “small history” forms the “collective memory” and is learned by listening to those who lived through those times. It is up to us to pass on to future generations the memories of those who lived through the tragedy of war, fear, hunger. This book, which the Plague forced to be published without respecting the 45th anniversary of the end of the War, was born precisely from this moral duty: to tell the story of our people, to preserve our memories and to pass on the stories of so many soldiers, who are no longer with us today and must not be forgotten. They would die again and definitively if we lost their memory.
Edizione Condaghes
