Liberation day

• … and they used to rinse clothes in the Ombrone
• After September 8th 1943
• Between the twenties and thirties
• Corrado Capecchi, military internee
  • A medal (at last) for Corrado
  • The joke of the military internees
• Five places of Romanesque Carmignano
• Friar Bocci, at the beginning of the twentieth century
• From archaeologists to farmers
• Gino Balena
• Gino di Fico
• Historical shops in Carmignano
• In the name of Jesus and Saint Peter, may the sty go away
• Liberation day
• Matteucci, the ‘forgotten’ bishop
• Soldier in Greece
• Stories from a school notebook
• Stories of donkeys and jockeys
• Stories of mayors and town councils in Carmignano
• Stories of our home
• Stories of war and displaced persons
• The Battistina and other scary stories
• The colours of the rioni
• The Golden Roster
• The last sharecropper in Carmignano
• The siege in memory of the Princess
• The tree of liberty in Carmignano
• Ugo Contini Bonacossi
• Vittorio’s bicycles
• When the river Arno was fordable ..
• When they were digging pietra serena between Arno and Ombrone
• The colours of Carmignano, a small guide for tourists
  • Ancient churches and abbeys. Montalbano, a crossroads for pilgrims.
    • San Giusto al Pinone
    • San Jacopo in Capezzana
    • San Leonardo in Artimino
    • San Lorenzo in Montalbiolo
    • San Martino in Campo
    • San Michele amarcord
      • San Michele, the theater takes to the streets
• Itineraries for just a few days or more
  • Walking through history and nature
  • A Sunday devoted to the discovery of Artimino
  • A few words about the hamlets of Carmignano
  • The Fontina and Castagnati Lake
• Guides to download

It’s April 12th 1945, the day before the Germans fled: “We are free. May God be praised, “writes Conrad, he has spent more than a year and a half in Wietzendorf, Germany. And here’s what on 12th April he writes: a hymn to newfound freedom, freedom which is “holy and beautiful,” almost a frenzy, a joy that he tries to contain, maybe because many have died, but that can’t be held within him. Here is the last page of the diary.
“After many months of unspeakable physical and moral sufferings the time has come when we can finally cry out: “Freedom.” This word that is
the set of all the most beautiful things in the world, a synonym for life, joy and love. First of all thank God who has given strength to our liberators and also thanks to those who, defying death, always ready to take hold, have given us back the holy freedom we have been waiting and longing for. A devoted and grateful thought does out to all those who sacrificed their lives for this legitimate and humane cause. The force of evil has been torn down and now a glowing horizon of light and life fills our lives which for long months, have remained in the shadow and in spiritual and material pain. It’s been the Lord’s will. The one who has preserved us from harm and evil, let’s never forget Him and always thank and pray to Him as good Christians. I’m writing these poor lines at a time of almost delirious joy of finally being freed from a nightmare that has been haunting my existence. If I could, by means of these lines, express all the happiness, all the joy that radiates from my person, I would soak this page in tears of emotion. I contain this effort externally but within, I cannot, this moment is too good, too great to be able to suppress these intimate outbursts. “Freedom” how long I’ve been waiting for you! How much I hoped  for you! And you came. I have not waited or hoped in vain. Every sacrifice, every suffering has a recognition, and this was the greatest reward, the most coveted, after a long chain of bitterness and profound darkness that had blackened for 20 months, the lives of many human beings who had done nothing wrong .How many mothers, how many wives, how many children will wait in vain for the return of their loved one to whom unfortunately fate reserved some other place. What I’m writing here is   purely mine, it is my heart that has expressed itself. Long live freedom holy and beautiful. Corrado Capecchi “. (wf)