We propose an article by Annamaria Crasti whom we thank for the kind concession on the “Sunday of the brooms” an event that took place in August 1950. Many Gorizians who remained in Tito's Yugoslavia crossed the border not only to embrace relatives and friends but also made a lot of purchases and the best-selling item in the new Gorizia was a broom made of sorghum. 

«We are in Gorizia. It is August 13, 1950. Since February 10, 1947, the Gorizia of always no longer exists. Cruelly, as decided by the Peace Treaty, in the night between September 14 and 15, 1947, the city found itself divided. The inhabitants of some areas of the city cannot sleep that night: they hear, incessantly, a dull sound tum tum tum, incomprehensible.

When they wake up, they will understand that the noise that kept them from sleeping was the beginning of the end of a community linked by kinship, by deep friendships, by very close bonds formed over centuries of peaceful coexistence.

Nova Gorica (accent on the i- as pronounced by the current Mayor Rodolfo Ziberna) was born, a ghost town, populated by men, women, children, elderly, bewildered, frightened, resigned. A town governed by Yugoslavia where the graniciari (border guards) armed with rifles shot anyone who approached the barbed wire, even just for a glance, a smile, a greeting exchanged between grandparents and grandchildren, between brothers, between cousins, between friends, from meters away, made with a heart torn by an imposed and never accepted distance.

But it is not only this. The two realities are different: Gorizia where one lives freely, not in wealth but with a decent life assured, where the inhabitants walk serenely along the avenues looking at the shop windows that are starting to fill up, even with superfluous things but that make life more pleasant. Nova Gorica, a squalid city where one lives in fear, poverty and hard work.

The relations between Italy and the Yugoslav Federation are not easy. Those borders that divide countries and towns in Istria and Friuli imposed by the Diktat, the presence, in the Homeland, of the Exiles too cumbersome, the continuous arrival of new ones that will stop around 1954 with the return of Trieste to Italy, that not even so hidden Tito's claim on a Yugoslav Trieste make the relations between the two countries extremely difficult.

But secret negotiations began which culminated on Sunday 13 August 1950: for one whole day the barbed wire would no longer exist, for that day the impatient fingers of the granaries would no longer press the trigger of the machine gun, spreading terror... and hatred.

That is a special Sunday, it is the day before Ferragosto and the shops are exceptionally open; even those whose owners had decided to keep closed, suddenly hastily open their shutters: Gorizia is peacefully invaded by thousands of people who need everything pasta coffee detergents sewing thread combs… and hugs. Infinite hugs that never end. After three long years during which even a smile made from meters away could cost their lives, the lovers meet again, almost intimidated, the grandmothers almost do not recognize those children who throw themselves on their necks: they have grown up without them. They are scenes of indescribable tenderness, tears flow abundantly, it is not enough to hold hands: there is the urgency to hold each other, to touch each other, to look at each other, to recover that precious lost time that they will never have back.

But that's not all. It's morning and many Yugoslavian citizens of Gorizia have not gone to church or attended Mass for years. The regime they are subjected to forbids it, under penalty of prison, but even if they wanted to go, they couldn't because the churches are closed, barred; many priests have been killed, even Slavs, Cardinal Stepinac, Primate of Croatia is in prison and will remain there for about twenty years.

And then they rush to the Cathedral and can attend the sung Mass and are moved by the return to the sacraments, being able to pray freely. And that's not all. After the hugs, after the Mass they rush to all the shops in the city, of any kind, and empty them. The goods that are being snapped up are the sorghum brooms, which is why that August 13th will be called the Sunday of the brooms. It is said that the first shop to be stormed was the Podgornik grocery store that displayed precisely those brooms.

Those who have little money to spend have brought potatoes and onions as a bargaining chip. From old wallets come the lira of the Allied Military Government - GMA - and even the Italian silver lira with the eagle that came out at the end of the First World War. You spend all the money you have.

Some are disappointed, the Savings Bank is closed; they would have liked to deposit their lire there for fear that they would be confiscated or forced to exchange them for the dinar, which they considered almost worthless paper.

And that's not all. In the hardware store you buy screws, bolts, nails; you go to the old barber; you run to the pastry shop where you tasted, as a child, your first ice cream; many little ones, amazed by the novelty, forget to lick it and let it melt; the espresso is sipped: you drink it in a quarter of an hour to taste it and savor its aroma. And they eat bread! They eat it walking down the street with their eyes closed: it's the taste of home, of their home.

It is a nostalgic return to the past, almost as if to relive for a few hours the life of the past. After the careful shopping, they still find a few coins in their pockets. It will be useful in the bars and above all, in the taverns - for example the tavern of the Red House - where they have arranged to meet with friends and relatives for abundant libations and to sing, to sing together again in chorus the old songs, with shining eyes, with hearts overwhelmed by joy and pain: soon, in the evening, everything will end; the return to Nova Gorica will mean returning to the sadness of a gray daily life deprived of the dearest affections and the most precious good: freedom.

We cross the Casa Rossa and Transalpina passes again, with death in our hearts. All day long, Italian soldiers have controlled the streets and squares, racing around on their jeeps to prevent some Gorizians and even some Fiumens, involuntary Yugoslavs, from hiding.

You cannot and must not indulge in evasions. They would cause new problems and friction along the border and you must honor the pact made with the Federation. Despite so much attention, for a few days some escapees are found in Venice.

Seen from afar, those who returned looked like a tired army, a real army with rifles on their shoulders; but what seemed like weapons were only brooms, sorghum brooms, countless hundreds of sorghum brooms, a rare commodity in Yugoslavia, which had become the flag of a memorable, unforgettable day spent in what they still considered their homeland.

Those brooms would have reminded, if there had been any need, that they lived in a world where well-being did not exist: it would come much later, but they did not know it».

Anna Maria Crasti – 12/08/2021
Source: Varese In Light, How Live, Resegone Online, Valtellina News