“Via Pola – City of Exodus”. This is what a toponymic sign on the southern outskirts of Bergamo says. The council houses on that street and the surrounding streets formed the Julian-Dalmatian hamlet that finally provided a residence for hundreds of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian exiles who, in the immediate post-war period, had found initial shelter in an adjacent Refugee Collection Center. The Clementina Crp, one of over 110 that arose throughout Italy, including the islands, to manage the humanitarian emergency of our fellow countrymen fleeing the communist dictatorship of Tito, who had annexed a large part of Venezia Giulia and the cities of Fiume and Zara to Yugoslavia as a result of the Peace Treaty of 10 February 1947.

Unlike other Italian cities, the welcome here was warm, and the community of Adriatic exiles integrated into Bergamo's social fabric. This is why the calendar of events that distinguishes Bergamo Brescia, Italian Capital of Culture 2023, also includes initiatives organized by the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia. The Bergamo Provincial Committee and the Brescia Delegation, which similarly operates in an area that generously welcomed several thousand Adriatic refugees, in the project " Bergamo and Brescia, cities that welcomed the Exodus. Places, stories, MEMORY and memories " are aimed primarily at schools, with the aim of understanding the connections between the two Lombard provinces and the events of the eastern border, with particular reference to the Exodus.

And when it comes to outreach to the Istrian, Fiume, and Dalmatian exiles, Simone Cristicchi has become an essential figure. In recent weeks, he successfully brought his civic theater work "Magazzino 18" back to the theaters in a new edition curated by director Antonio Calenda to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the debut of this production at the Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia. The final two stops on his tour took place in Bergamo thanks to the efforts of Maria Elena Depetroni , president of the Bergamo provincial committee and national vice president of the ANVGD. On the evening of Sunday, February 26, over 1500 people filled the Creber Theater to attend the performance of Magazzino 18, an event in which the ANVGD covered all expenses to allow free admission to those who had booked. The next morning, the hall was once again packed with spectators, this time entirely composed of students, who attentively and emotionally followed the Roman artist's performance, once again made possible thanks to the financial support of the ANVGD.

In her opening remarks, Professor Depetroni, along with Mayor Giorgio Gori, recounted the history of the local Julian-Dalmatian community, whose neighborhood is located not far from that hall and whose history is finally emerging as a national heritage. The mayor of Bergamo praised the enthusiasm and operational expertise that the ANVGD director has poured into this and other initiatives, which have helped further consolidate an institutional collaboration that will be further highlighted in future events during the Capital of Culture.

The curtain then rose on a scene in which Simone Cristicchi moved with passion and consolidated acting experience, playing not only the ministerial official Persichetti and the Spirit of the Household Goods from Warehouse 18, but also the many victims of the history of the eastern border whose lives ended at the bottom of a sinkhole or in the despair of a refugee camp. It could be said that the Spirit of the Household Goods is the narrator, the conductor of a whirlwind tour of the events of the troubled first half of the twentieth century on the Adriatic border. The Spirit recalls the burning of the Balkans by the fascists, but also the killing of two Italian sailors in Split the previous day at the hands of Croatian nationalists; It recalls the Yugoslav civilians who died of starvation in the Royal Army internment camps of Arbe and Gonars, as well as the tragic end of Norma Cossetto, those deported by Tito's regime after the war, and the victims of the Risiera di San Sabba. The tension in the audience is palpable as Cristicchi plays a humble army courier and follows her journey to the edge of the foiba, amidst the violence and cruelty perpetrated by her torturers, Yugoslav communist partisans, until she falls to the bottom of the pit, tied with wire to her fellow victim, who falls after receiving a gunshot to the back of the head.

As the narrative unfolds, Persichetti begins to understand what the foibe are, the tragedies that have befallen Italian life on the Adriatic, and, above all, what the furniture, everyday objects, and photographs that accumulated in Warehouse 18 in Trieste's Old Port represent: a connection to the roots that were violently severed and the hope of rebuilding a new life far from the climate of terror of Tito's regime. In his telephone conversations with his superior at the Ministry of the Interior, the bureaucrat in charge of the disposal of these possessions represents the average Italian, who for over half a century, through schooling and the media, has been completely ignorant of what happened in Venezia Giulia after the war, but who is now slowly, thanks to the institution of Remembrance Day, beginning to learn the truth. Shocking truths, such as the fact that the bloodiest civilian massacre in the history of the Italian Republic occurred on the beach at Vergarolla on August 18, 1946, where the explosion of a defused mine swept to pieces women, children, and entire families who had gathered on a sunny summer Sunday to watch a sporting event. A tragedy from which the figure of Geppino Micheletti stands out, the doctor who continued to operate and save lives despite knowing that his two sons were among the more than 100 dead.

Through the humiliation of the Train of Shame episode, we are transported to the squalor of refugee camps, where exiles are confined in appalling hygienic and existential conditions for years, living in dilapidated shacks or in enormous spaces where blankets hung from wires serve to fictitiously separate families and lives that, in many cases, slide desperately into alcoholism, suicide, or madness. And there are those like Marinella, who freezes to death at the age of one in the Padriciano refugee camp on the Trieste Karst plateau during a freezing winter in the 1950s: while Italy is on the verge of an economic boom, a baby girl freezes to death in a shantytown that simultaneously welcomes but isolates from the rest of the world families of all social and political backgrounds, whose homelands and assets served to repay the debt that all of Italy, defeated by the war, owed to victorious Yugoslavia. The uprooting from Istria is well represented by the performance of 1947 by Sergio Endrigo , a singer-songwriter from Pula who, to express his nostalgia, titles the song with the year in which the motor vessel Toscana emptied the city of Pula of all its inhabitants, destined for annexation to Tito's Yugoslavia.

From that pile of chairs that has become a symbolic image of Magazzino 18 (which today has received an appropriate museum setting in the neighboring Magazzino 26) Cristicchi finally tears some chairs and throws them on the stage, assigning each one to one of those people whose tragic existence he has just finished recounting. And in the midst of those chairs the Roman singer-songwriter received a warm standing ovation from an audience astonished and overwhelmed by the events of which they have finally learned or that they have seen represented on a stage in such a way as to emerge from the oblivion and personal memory in which they were confined.

The matinee on Monday, February 27, also drew a large student audience, who watched a compelling and moving, tragic and instructive compendium of the history of the eastern border unfold on stage. The performance concluded with the final awards ceremony for the February 10 Competition, organized by the Working Group of the Ministry of Education and Merit – Associations of Istrian, Fiume, and Dalmatian Exiles. This school year's competition was titled "Beloved Shores. Rebuilding after the Exodus: Between Regret and Strength of Spirit." Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education Paola Frassinetti explained that in the previous days, the winning classes had undertaken the Journey of Remembrance , visiting the sites where the tragedies on Italy's eastern border occurred (from Warehouse 26 to the Risiera, passing through the Basovizza Foiba, and also visiting the Italian Community of Piran). Senator Alessandra Gallone , delegate of the Minister of Universities and Research Anna Maria Bernini, delivered a greeting, while Antonino Diliberto, director of the Ministry of Education and Merit , and Marzia Marchesi, councilor for public parks, public housing, general affairs, citizenship education, peace, legality and transparency, and equal opportunities, representing the municipal administration, were also present. Marchesi has always followed the activities of the city's ANVGD with interest.

Vincenzo Cubelli, director of the Provincial School Office , praised the students for their attentiveness to Cristicchi's performance, and emphasized the winning works in the school competitions dedicated to Remembrance Day, highlighting their ability to express tradition (i.e., convey stories, memories, and emotions) and imagination (in the expressive modes adopted to communicate). Professor Donatella Schürzel , as deputy national vice president of the ANVGD, recalled how the association she represents has supported Cristicchi's theatrical work from the beginning, a valuable tool for moving from recollection, which is often personal, to memory, which is collective: the emotional power of memories combined with historical sources consolidates knowledge. Finally, Inspector Caterina Spezzano conducted the last of the February 10th Competition awards ceremonies, which were held at a widespread event this year, as previous award ceremonies for the winners had been held in Rome at the Chamber of Deputies, the Quirinale Palace, and the House of Remembrance.

Lorenzo Salimbeni