Municipal Plaques

Two plaques were placed in the internal corridor of the Town Hall of San Marcello Pistoiese. The first plaque was installed on 2 June 1971, on the 25th anniversary of the Italian Republic. It was dedicated to the fighters and those who fell for freedom during the Second World War. It bears the epigraph dictated by Piero Calamandrei – politician, jurist, writer, one of the founders of the Action Party, and one of the architects of the Republican Constitution – condemning Albert Kesselring, commander of the German occupation forces in Italy. 

After returning to Germany, the general declared that the Italian people should be grateful to him and should even dedicate a monument to him. In response to this claim, Calamandrei wrote a text that was later placed above what became known as the ‘plaque of ignominy’, in the atrium of the Town Hall in Cuneo. The final phrase, “ora e sempre Resistenza” (“now and always Resistance”), has remained in the Italian collective memory, symbolising both the partisan struggle and the battles of all the oppressed. It is still cited today on 25 April (Liberation Day) and other commemorative occasions. 

The second plaque is dedicated to the local soldiers who died in Nazi camps. It was installed on 27 January 2003, on the Day of Remembrance. This memorial day was established by the Italian Parliament in 2000 to remember the extermination and persecution of the Jewish people and of Italian military and political deportees in Nazi camps. 

This context includes the experiences of the Italian Military Internees – soldiers captured by the German forces after the Armistice and deported to labour and concentration camps. San Marcello Pistoiese had dozens of such soldiers; 15 of them did not survive.