#w la resistenza
Graziella (or Grazia) Giuffrida was born in Catania in 1924. From a young age, she was known for being very kind and determined. When, upon graduation, she expressed her desire to move to Genova to work as a teacher, her parents tried their best to stop her, but in vain. Together with her brother Salvatore, Graziella arrived in Genova in 1943.
Horrified by the many atrocities and acts of violence committed by the nazi-fascists, and inspired by Salvatore’s antifascism, Graziella decided soon to join a SAP, a partisan squadron, together with her brother. However, not long after becoming a partisan, she met her horrible end.
On March 24th 1945, while riding a streetcar, a group of German soldiers started molesting her. While groping her, they realized she was hiding a gun under her coat.
After being arrested, Graziella was led to a shed in the suburb, where she was tortured, raped and finally killed. Her body was taken to Fegino in Val Polcevera, in the locality of Barbini, and tossed in a ditch together with those of Daniele Cotella (43, captured because he had secretly hosted a partisan), Sebastiano Macciò (23, partisan), Andrea Savoldelli (48, partisan), Giancarlo Valle il genovese (19, partisan). They were casually found on April 28th. They had been so cruelly tortured, it took three days to properly identify the corpses.
Graziella’s brother, Salvatore, would be too captured and killed by the nazi-fascists, although.
At the news that both her children had died, their parents went crazy with grief. Graziella and Salvatore’s bodies were brought back to Catania and placed to rest in their family tomb.
Sources
- GIAMMUSSO, MARCELLA, Graziella la Partigiana
- PEDEMONTE, GIANLUCA, Rocca dei Corvi, il memoriale “ostaggio” dei cantieri del Terzo Valico. Cociv: «Sarà meglio di prima». La storia dell’eccidio e della partigiana Graziella Giuffrida
- VILLAGGIO DAVIDE, Graziella e Salvatore Giuffrida: eroi catanesi della Resistenza
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On this day, 30 July 1906, Italian anti-fascist and revolutionary Alfonso Failla was born in Sicily. From the age of 19 he took part in the armed resistance to fascism: including the 1925 Battle of Siracusa where local residents and dock workers inflicted heavy losses on an invading force of 1000 armed fascists. He was jailed by the fascists in 1930, until he led a prison revolt and mass breakout after 1943. He then got involved in the wartime resistance movement, and helped free hundreds of Italian prisoners being marched to Nazi death camps. He remained active until the end of his life in 1986. More info in this short biography: https://libcom.org/history/failla-alfonso-1906-1986https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1177568279094987/?type=3
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