Aldo Clemente would have turned one hundred last October 21, having passed away in 2014 after having been the General Secretary of the Opera Assistenza ai Refughi giuliani e Dalmatiani from 1949 to 1979. Previously, he had been the provincial secretary of the Associazione Orfani di Guerra in Trieste, his hometown, and secretary for two years of the National Committee for Italian Refugees, before dedicating his efforts in particular to the integration of the hundreds of thousands of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian exiles throughout the peninsula and who, specifically, would have found a new home on the extreme southern outskirts of Rome. They had spontaneously settled along Via Laurentina, in the pavilions that had hosted the workers engaged in the construction of the nearby EUR district, where the 1942 Universal Exhibition was to take place. Together with the couple Marcella Meyer and Oscar Sinigaglia, Clemente was the main architect of the transformation of a sort of shanty town into a neighborhood where hundreds of families could have public housing in which to truly begin a new life.

An austere leader and efficient administrator, Aldo Clemente nevertheless reserved affection and kindness for the children of exiles, born or raised in what had become the Julian-Dalmatian Quarter, and was also capable of being moved by the most serious situations of hardship that he found himself facing in his relationship with the Adriatic community of Rome. He was a sort of tutelary deity of the Quarter, loved and well-liked by all: proof of this is the fundraising that spontaneously began after his death so that a plaque could be engraved that would testify to the gratitude and affection that hundreds of people felt towards him.

In a society where many were already seeking the spotlight and fame far beyond their own merits, Clemente was always humble and modest, one of those institutional men thanks to whom not only the exiles, but all of Italy were able to recover in the post-war period.

In an extremely farsighted manner he was a precious and never intrusive advisor and teacher, demonstrating esteem and appreciation for me and for the entire second generation of exiles who took over the management of the Provincial Committee of Rome of the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia. He always remained close to the Julian-Dalmatian associations, so much so that he was elected the first president of the Federation of Associations of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian Exiles when it was founded in 1990. But he had already understood that the future of our tragic history and the preservation of the memory of what happened to the first exiles lay in the commitment of the second and third generations, who had in their family experience of that page of Italian history, but at the same time represented the reintegration and rebirth of Adriatic Italianness.

His memory and example are frequently recurring and on the occasion of his centenary, may Aldo Clemente have unchanged esteem and affection.

Donatella Schurzel 
Vice President of the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia 
President of the ANVGD provincial committee of Rome