In the collective imagination and in everyday life, firefighters represent the most solid shield protecting the population. A body that doesn't interrogate danger, but rather confronts it, driven by an ethic of service that goes beyond professional duty. Yet, there is a lesser-known but profoundly dramatic chapter in their history where their mission was not to save the living, but to restore dignity to the dead: the recovery of bodies from the Foibe (foibe) of Istria and Julian.

Journalist Viviana Facchinetti talks about this topic in detail in her book …because the FIREFIGHTERS are always there. Trieste and its firefighters through centuries of history, news, and real life. (Association of Italians of Pula and Istria – Free Municipality of Pula in Exile, Trieste 2025), which recently received second prize in the History and Historical Essays section of the 20th edition of the “Gen. Loris Tanzella” Award and was the focus of the conference “From the Abysses of the Foibe to the Abysses of Memory,” dedicated to the recovery of bodies from karst caves by firefighters and held in Rome, at Palazzo Giustiniani.

The daily newspaper service The Voice of the People:

Rome. Rediscovering humble heroes