“The bloodiest and most sensational anti-German urban attack in all of Western Europe”

An attack. Something too serious. A criminal act. A legitimate act of war at the time of its perpetration. Here is a sad example of the Divided Memory of Italians, with its many moral, legal, and historiographical controversies surrounding it: the GAP attack on Via Rasella.

When we talk about moral controversies, we are not just talking about responsibility but about a much more complex issue, centered on the eternal question "when does the end justify the means?"

Even in the face of clear evidence and over the decades, false convictions and convictions have continued to flourish. But what seems most regrettable to us is that these accusations and controversies are primarily Italian. It doesn't matter whether they are right-wing or left-wing; what's serious is that the facts are ignored and convenient truths are told while ignoring historical reality.

That these false beliefs come from Italians themselves is saddening and disappointing, making our country appear ungrateful and hypocritical: we tend to forget the large number of Italians who participated in the fascist movement, and we condemn the Via Rasella youth for an action that literally marked the turning point in Italy's liberation, allowing the Allies to advance and freeing Rome from Nazi occupation.

It's said that knowing history is important to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. It's said that history is written by the victors. So why, despite these premises, is history poorly told or remembered? Why do we still give more importance to moralizing than to the admissions of those directly responsible and affected?

Civil Words begins with a contribution by historian Alessandro Barbero, who recounts the established truth of the attack and sheds light on the lies that poison Italian memory, debunking them. The text is both a warning and an invitation: each of us is responsible for transmitting past memories to future generations, and this must be done with honesty, humility, and truth. If we allowed lies to contaminate the facts that brought us to where we are today, we would compromise our future and our national identity.