"An emigrant has a destination, an exile has a past. An emigrant can always return, he has a homeland waiting for him. An exile leaves forever". These are substantial differences and not simply linguistic ones that Egea Haffner identified at the conclusion of this afternoon's meeting "Women of the Istrian exodus", hosted in the great hall of the Santa Chiara University Center in Gorizia, for èStoria, and organized in collaboration with Anvgd-Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia.

Having become a symbol of the exodus as the protagonist of the now iconic image of the little girl with the suitcase (hence the title of the book published in 1995 by Piemme), Egea retraced the painful stages of her existence, a life that she nevertheless considered happy for the successes, personal and family, that later distinguished her. Her fate, in some ways similar to that of Erminia Dionis, a childhood friend of Norma Cossetto whose cousin she ended up marrying.

Orphaned of her father, due to her ties with her future husband's family she was forced to abandon her mother from one moment to the next for having rebelled against Tito's son who had gone to take away all the people related to the Cossettos, including her sister Gianna who had also married a cousin of Norma, risking being thrown into a sinkhole together with her son Edoardo who was just 8 days old. The stages of her journey to Trieste are lucidly described by this lively lady who, at ninety-two years old, continues to teach in a high school, recounting a past of suffering.

Experience that, as mentioned, unites her with Egea Haffner who became aware of the fate of her father, taken from home on May 6, 1945, only for having seen his scarf wrapped around the neck of a Tito supporter she met on the street. For this reason, in 2006 Egea received a medal from President Ciampi that commemorates her father's sacrifice, while the memory of her family's past and of all the exiles is found at the Egea Ecomuseum in Fertilia (Alghero) to which in 2022 she donated the photographic collection in which you can also find the shot that became the symbol of the exodus.

Similar to the story of these two women is that of Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, mother of the more famous Joe, a figure introduced by Barbara Sturmar, a teacher of literary subjects at the Ascoli middle school, and two of her former students who took part last year in a project dedicated to the Julian and Dalmatian exodus. The memory of the privations linked to the years spent at the Risiera is strong, which from a concentration camp was transformed into a sort of sorting place for exiles awaiting their relocation.

But it is precisely from the memory of that period and from the nostalgia for what she had left behind that Lidia's redemption was born, linked to the cuisine and flavors that she had always carried in her mind and heart. The meeting, which was sold out, was introduced by the president of the Anvgd Maria Grazia Ziberna: the historical context she provided highlighted the importance that women have played even in this delicate moment, allowing the memory of a people to be preserved without this precluding a confident look towards the future.

Eliana Mogorovich
Source: The Gorizia – 28/05/2023