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Feb.13,2005 -Feb.20,2005 |
When women of Monteleone rebelled
Canada's Federal Minister of Human Resources Joe Volpe recalls the 1942 Italian revolt
By Francesco Veronesi
Originally Published: 2004-11-14
Stop this war, we want our children back, we want our husbands back!" The women of Monteleone overwhelmed with these desperate shouts the religious processions of the torrid summer of 1942. The situation in southern Italy was on the verge of economic, social, and political collapse. Daily life for those women was misery, hunger, and rage for the absence of their men, sent to fight abroad in the name of the tyrant in Rome: in the hellish Libyan desert, in the harsh Balkan mountains, or in the limitless plains of the Soviet Union.
This was the context of the first real rebellion against Fascism. Researchers from the Universities of Foggia, Naples and Bologna, with funding from the European Union, reconstructed a detailed picture of what happened in August 1942 in Monteleone, Apulia. The research generated a book, Donne contro la guerra ("Women Against War"), edited by Vito Antonio Leuzzi, professor at Foggia and director of the Apulian Institute for the History of Antifascism and Contemporary Italy.
The revolt of the tiny mountain town in Apulia was sparked by many courageous women, including two grandaunts of Joe Volpe, Federal minister of Human Resources, originally from Monteleone. He told us something about the events of 1942.
"The revolt was led by the women of Monteleone, exasperated, enraged and desperate," remembers an emotional Volpe. "Following the revolt, some 180 people were thrown in jail; a few did several weeks, many more up to 14 or 15 months."
The rage exploded on the morning of August 23. The spark was the arrogance of a Carabinieri officer who seized pots of corn that some women were carrying to a local bakery. "Our children must eat," said the women, who resisted. The most vociferous of the women were brought in front of the regime-appointed mayor who sided with the military police officer. The women were jailed in a warehouse. The place was filled with cheese and other foodstuff: the rage of those starving women became unstoppable. They set the place on fire and escaped. That's when the revolt began in earnest.
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