Je visitai la ville de Forlì, dans le nord de l’Italie, pour la première
fois en 2002. Moment émouvant s’il en est un, puisqu’il s’agit du lieu où ma
mère naquit et où, encore jeune fille, elle rencontra mon père, à l’époque où
il était soldat dans la division néo-zélandaise de la 8e armée. C’était en
1944. Après la guerre, ma mère accompagna mon père en Nouvelle-Zélande, où je
grandis parmi de puissantes évocations des lieux et des événements qui
marquèrent leurs expériences de guerre. Pourtant, malgré toute la vivacité et
l’émotivité contenue dans les histoires de mes parents, le tout prit pour moi
une réalité nouvelle 58 ans plus tard, lors de ce premier séjour à Forlì.
Mon père m’y accompagnait; c’était la première fois qu’il y mettait les
pieds depuis 1945. Je fus subjugué par la précision de ses souvenirs des
édifices, des rues et de la disposition de la ville. Cela me rappela que ma
mère, à son premier retour à Forlì 35 ans après la guerre, avait été
spontanément accueillie en pleine rue par une vieille connaissance qui s’est
écriée: «Cela fait une éternité que je ne t’ai pas vu!»
Plus poignantes étaient les choses qui brillaient par leur absence. La
ferme de Malmissole, près de Forlì, où mes parents s’étaient rencontrés,
n’est plus. La maison à Forlì, rue Giorgio Regnoli, où ont habité ma mère et
ses parents après la libération de la ville, fut bombardée par les Allemands;
une demeure beaucoup plus moderne se tient maintenant à cet endroit.
Cependant, au milieu de ces souvenirs et de bien d’autres encore, le paysage
sonore de Forlì provoqua une autre réaction. Debout au centre de la Piazza
Aurelio Saffi, j’écoutai les cloches de diverses églises, que l’on entend
clairement de très loin, et je ressentis une forte impression; je perçus dans
ces sons la résonance des lieux et de leur histoire; j’y vis des «voix» du
passé, quelque chose de permanent, mais de bien vivant, qui donne
l’impression d’être touché par la dimension physique des sons que d’autres
ont entendus avec la même immédiateté, pendant plusieurs années et à travers
des périodes difficiles, voire violentes. Évidemment, les raisons
personnelles de ma visite me rendaient particulièrement réceptif à une telle
idée.
En réponse au déluge d’expressions des lieux et d’identité, ainsi qu’à mon
propre sentiment inexorable d’appartenir à Forlì tout en y étant étranger,
ces œuvres explorent l’interaction existant entre mémoire et expérience,
entre narration et évocation, en rapprochant sons et voix du passé et du
présent pour former des paysages sonores imaginaires.
John Young, Leicester (Angleterre,
RU) [traduction française: François Couture,
x-07]
La version originale des textes de Ricordiamo
Forlì
This is Piazza Aurelio Saffi, at the heart of Forlì, a small city in
the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna. It’s a warm September
morning and the piazza is crowded with people, watched over by the lofty
bell tower of the 12th century Basilica of San Mercuriale.
The bells of the Duomo — the Cathedral of Santa Croce — cascade across
the center of Forlì and beyond, echoed by bells of outlying churches and
chimes of the city’s clock tower. It feels like these sounds have existed
here forever, part of the space, part of the life of the city.
Just next to the tower of San Mercuriale there is a small portico with
a memorial captioned Caduti per la Libertà — fallen for liberty
— acknowledging many who died in World War II in the struggle against
occupying Nazi forces and Fascism. Their pictures, some of them children,
are etched into tiles in memory of what people of this town went through
at that time.
The year of 1944 saw Forlì ravaged by the bombardments of both Allies
and Germans and subject to vicious Nazi reprisals against her people,
trapped in a conflict that forced its way into their lives in a chaotic
struggle amongst foreign soldiers, partisans and a new wave of
repubblichini — soldiers of the Fascist puppet state of Northern
Italy. And it was here, from the tall iron lampposts that circle Piazza
Saffi that the bodies of La Banda Corbari were hung, a group of
partisans executed after being captured by Nazis and denounced by
Fascists. Such chilling cruelty, such inhuman actions. These were
witnessed and endured in Forlì.
Standing here, in front of the San Mercuriale memorial, we see faces,
names, dates. All are reminders that the suffering brought by war is
intensely personal and its violence indiscriminate. In the broad wash of
time, we so easily lose sight of the individual tragedies, and the little
chance events from which life and death hang in the balance, woven within
the savage machinery of war. It’s one such story that is remembered
now.
Interlude 1
Bitter Storm
Narrator
Following the armistice between Italy and the Allies in September
1943, the 8th and 5th Allied armies commenced an invasion of the Italian
mainland and began to move north from the southern cities of Taranto and
Salerno. As armies engaged in bitter combat, a nation was immersed in a
chain of horrific destruction that thrust its way through cities and
across the land.
War Correspondent 1
Now you hear the roar of the bombers, they’re approaching now in from
the sun right high above overhead is a Spitfire…
War Correspondent 2
… takes the form of an all out air offensive against their forward
positions and this attack is in progress before me as I speak to you.
Very large numbers of planes are coming over, giving the German
positions… dive bombers have gone and the artillery again takes up the
pounding of the enemy forward positions…
War Correspondent 3
And as the shells screamed down and the walls collapsed in gray powder
around us we raced back to tell you, on the spot, the full nightmare of
the war…
War Correspondent 1
All down the hillside now the pounding grows in a multitude of vicious
mounds of flame and smoke… Approaching now the target. Already a cloud of
green smoke is rising from the center of the town which is evidently the
point to be bombed. And there’s the load of the Boston attack just fell
on the town and terrific black smoke is rising in amazingly thick columns
spread over the whole area. And the sound of the actual explosions will
reach you now.
War Correspondent 4
We passed through village after village and every one of them bore the
scars of the twin war machines which had smashed through them in these
past few months. In the streets, black with churned up mud, and in the
crumbling doorways of windowless, often roofless houses, I saw
barefooted, ragged little children, faces pinched with cold and shivering
against the cold rain. Often, as we passed through towns, I saw men and
women digging in the ruins of their homes for something they might still
call their own. … The gathering darkness added the last somber touch to
this dismal scene of war. Here men had fought and died, and the air was
full of the tragedy. Then, when we were only a few minutes from here, and
we entered the approaches to this little town from where I’m talking a
little procession came toward us. First there was the Priest striding
quickly along in the rain. And behind him came four little boys all about
10 years old. They were carrying a very little coffin on their shoulders,
and they were almost running to keep up with the priest. Behind them,
coming from the front, a long convoy of 8th Army lorries followed, and
didn’t try and pass.
Ancient Tear
L’albero a cui tendevi
la pargoletta mano,
il verde melograno
da’ bei vermigli fior,
nel muto orto solingo
rinverdì tutto or ora
e giugno lo ristora
di luce e di calor.
Tu fior de la mia pianta
percossa e inaridita,
tu de l’inutil vita
estremo unico fior,
sei ne la terra fredda,
sei ne la terra negra;
né il sol più ti rallegra
né ti risveglia amor.
[Poem Pianto Antico by Giosuè
Carducci]
Winter
Narrator
The winter months of 1943-44 saw harsh weather — and extreme cold
transformed the land into a frozen, inhospitable environment. To escape
the cold many soldiers abandoned their usual sleeping place of a slit
trench covered by a bivouac tent for whatever houses were nearby,
bringing them into close contact with civilians. As towns and villages
were destroyed, many Italian citizens became sfollati — evacuees
— dispersed out of cities and into the countryside.
War Correspondent 1
The heaviest fall of snow so far this winter has just taken place. The
whole countryside is now a picture of winter, with bare brown trees and
hedges carrying a pattern of snow over the white blanket beneath. The
roads are churned to broken drifts of slush and ice, and all movement is
becoming increasing difficult. As I speak to you, snow is still falling
and it seems certain that settled winter conditions have fallen on the
Italian front.
Pippo
Narrator
For people caught in the sweep of this war, danger was everywhere. In
the sky at night, over many parts of Northern and Central Italy reports
of a phantom airplane, dubbed Pippo, symbolized the anxiety of
civilians. It came only in darkness, sometimes without incident,
sometimes dropping flares here and there, or explosives where a light
might be shining. The droning presence of Pippo inflamed the
fears of ordinary people — an invisible, looming threat that some were
sure was American, while to others it was German, or even Italian.
Pippo epitomized the identity of the enemy as something fluid
and ambiguous — the destruction brought by strangers, and the menace
fermenting within the nation.
The Garden
Narrator
In the summer of 1944 a young woman, evacuated from the city, rode
toward Forlì on her bicycle, looking for what was left of her family’s
house, shattered in one of the first waves of Allied bombing. Along a
country road, a black speck floated on the horizon and, suddenly, became
an Allied fighter plane whose eyes saw this innocent figure as the enemy.
She never knew just how it was that she escaped, but she rode on to find
what was left of her home — gutted and strewn with remnants of the life
they had left behind. And yet what she saw that day was that the garden
had bloomed into a vibrant image of hope.
A Little Italian Farm
War Correspondent 3
This is the story of a little Italian farm. Which, just for a day,
found itself in the front line. At that moment it was simply point
098524, where two German machine guns had to be cleared up. It had no
human personality as it were. It was just a map reference that would be
passed and forgotten by the end of the day. Inside, the whole family were
sheltering in a deep cellar. The walls were still shaking from an
occasional shell dropping near at hand. On a rough bed, the old
grandfather was lying wounded in the leg. He’d been wounded by one of our
own lads who’d mistaken him for a German when Grandfather had come
hobbling out of the door to welcome us. And Grandmother, aged 70, was
holding his hand. The old lady produced two pathetically soiled letters
obviously read and re-read a hundred times. They were from her grandsons,
prisoners of war in Sardinia. Was there any hope that she could see them
again? And as they talked, I realized the immense hope that the ordinary,
simple people of Europe feel…
Interlude 2 — Florence
War Correspondent 1
Well, that is a New Zealand tank just entering Florence. Today is
Friday the 4th of August and New Zealanders, together with South Africans
on the right flank have reached the goal of long endeavor and fighting
after many hard weeks of action… It’s really quite difficult to carry on
any kind of connected commentary. People are gathering around the
microphone, I’m being constantly patted on the back and presented with
flowers. There’s great shouting and excitement and really one can only
convey a very scattered picture of this tremendous occasion. Bottles of
vino are being produced from everywhere. And the New Zealanders of course
are taking every opportunity of the… er… opportunity to slake a thirst,
which has grown over the dusty road and particularly during the last 2
nights of hard fighting.
Forlì — November 1944
Narrator
Pressing on to the north, following their involvement in devastating
battles at Orsogna, at Cassino and in the battle for Florence, the New
Zealand Division of the 8th Army was among the forces advancing along the
Adriatic coast in September 1944, approaching the so-called Gothic line
of German defense which stretched across northern Italy from La Spezia to
Pesaro. Heading north from Rimini on the Adriatic Coast, this eventually
brought the New Zealanders to Forlì. Amongst these troops was Alex, a
gunner in the New Zealand 5th Field Regiment. Over 60 years later, he
recalls passing through Piazza Saffi for the first time.
Alex
We went through Forlì, right through the square, and right up and
through the big archway and then we turned right and went down to
Malmissole. The Germans hadn’t been long gone. We went through the Saffi
and there was… the Germans had strung up a lot of Partisans from… on each
of those posts, those lampposts. There was a big sign, a big painting up
on the wall, I think it was like a poster, just down by where the church
was, showing a New Zealand soldier — like a Maori it was too, he was a
Maori — with a baby in his arms and the blood dripping from it and
underneath written ’this is the enemy: beware’.
Narrator
Allied troops and partisans had liberated Forlì on the cold and misty
morning of November the 9th 1944, after a night battle for the Forlì
airfield. Yet it remained a perilous place. One BBC war correspondent
described his experience in Piazza Saffi when he arrived there on that
day.
War Correspondent 5
Eventually we found ourselves in the main Piazza or square, a
beautiful place in a rather gloomy, sinister way arcaded on two sides
with a fine Romanesque church with a tall tower right opposite us. San
Mercuriale we were told it was. And I was just remarking to a colleague
that the church along with the rest of the city seemed to be entirely
undamaged when swish, bang, a shell from a German field gun, a 105,
exploded slap in the middle of the square. This was followed by five or
six others, though we didn’t wait to see them burst.
Narrator
In fact there had been many civilian deaths and terrible destruction
around the town as a result of Allied bombing raids in the preceding
months, and in the wake of the German retreat. Under the Nazi occupation,
scores of people — partisans and those accused of supporting them, Jews
and other innocents caught in reprisals — were put to death, while many
others were deported to forced labor camps in Germany and its remaining
territories.
The night before the Allies’ entry into Forlì, the city lay coldly
silent in fear of another air raid. Then, in the small hours of the 9th
of November, the silence was shattered as the retreating Nazis carried
out their earlier threat to blow up the city’s prominent towers,
including the municipal Torre civica, and the campanile of the Duomo,
whose falling bells shattered the great wooden beams below. By some
grace, the tower of San Mercuriale was spared.
Family Story
Narrator
One family named Fariselli had, like so many others, been forced to
escape the city’s dangers as the tide of the war overtook them in 1944.
They had lived close to the railway station, a key bombing target, and
with their home destroyed in an air attack the parents, Euclide and
Maria, two of their daughters Tarcisia and Imelde as well as Imelde’s
small children, Giovanna, Giorgio and Carla found refuge in the outskirts
of Forlì at the home of the Strocchi family in the farming area of
Malmissole. Soon, German troops were also staying in the farmhouse — and
this was to plunge the family into torment… One soldier, handling a
machine gun… incomprehensibly triggered it and, in one shocking instant,
took the life of Imelde’s little boy.
Once in Malmissole
Narrator
As the world stood still for one family, the conflict continued around
them as the Allied pursuit of the German army and civil war scoured the
country. And then, as winter drew near, it was in front of the Strocchi
farmhouse at Malmissole that the New Zealand soldier Alex found himself
looking for shelter with the rest of his battery in November 1944. It was
here that he met Tarcisia.
Alex
We arrived in the sort of courtyard you’d call it, where it was
cobblestones. And the Sergeant Major said to me “Well, go up and there
and get a room for us.” So I went upstairs and there were three or four
rooms. There was a passageway down the middle and there were three rooms
there and three rooms on the other side. So I got that one, I went and
got that room and there were a lot of grapes hanging up, I remember that,
and I remember tasting them — they were quite good, they were green
grapes. And then I walked over to this other room where there were
windows on all of them but on this other side there was nothing. But I
walked over to this other room and had a look out the window because
there was … a lot of people down below, turning around and mucking
around, you know, people. So I looked out the window and who should be
sitting on the window at the end but this beautiful girl, you see, so I
just looked out the window and sort of said to her “Buongiorno”, and she
said “Buongiorno “. Didn’t know what to say, I said “Vuoi una sigaretta?”
and she replied “No, non fumare.” So, I just sort of smiled at her again
and she smiled back and I thought, by gosh… that was it. It was just love
at first sight.
Narrator
Not long after Alex and Tarcisia met, her family were able to move
back into Forlì — Tarcisia with her parents to a house close to Piazza
Saffi, and Imelde and her children to an apartment on the other side of
the town. Alex’s regiment were now in action at Villanova, between Forlì
and the city of Faenza to the north. In the following months, Alex and
Tarcisia met whenever they could and almost straight away one of those
meetings was to change their lives forever.
The Bomb
Alex
Of course what actually happened, with the bombing… Imelde and Carla
and Giovanna, they went with their cousins, there were quite a few of
them, into this big apartment place. I never ever saw it. But they were —
I believe — they were on the fifth floor. They had gone two days before
Tarcisia and her mother and father left, and they went to via Regnoli and
Tarcisia told me where they were going and told me it was 38 via Regnoli.
So she said “Would you like to come down?” By this time we’d moved up to
Villanova, so she said “If you’ve got… would you come down one
afternoon?” so I said “Yes I’ll come down tomorrow.” So I got down there
and she told me this afterwards that her mother had said to Tarcisia that
morning “Well, this afternoon we’ll go round and see Imelde and see how
they’ve settled in, and Carla and company.” And Tarcisia said “Oh do we
have to go today?” and Maria said “Why?” She said, “Well, that soldier
that I like is coming down and he’s going to come and see me.” And her
mother said “Oh well, OK, we can go another day, don’t worry about it,
it’ll be alright.” So I duly arrived and Tarcisia was there and gave me a
glass of wine. Her mother was sitting in the corner, knitting away,
knitting away. And I spent just the afternoon with her, you know,
cuddling a bit… and then I left and of course I had to walk to the square
to get my truck and I just went straight out, straight through the big
archway, which is blocked off now. Well I got past, just through that
archway, and I saw this plane, or I heard it, and saw it. And I just saw
the bomb coming out. It was an enormous thing, it looked to me like a
great big 44 gallon drum and it was just turning over like that as it
flew down — and about that height which, had I stayed where I was, it
seemed to me it would have dropped, more or less… but I took off, it
actually carried on a bit further where the apartment was — hit this
apartment…
I never thought anything about it. I heard it explode and all the rest
of it, the big noise and I’d got back to Villanova. Next morning I went
down to see Tarcisia again and, oh, she told me the great tale you see
about it and she said that she was just going round to the hospital see
and she told me that Imelde had died, she was killed outright but Carla
was still alive and so was Giovanna. So I went round to the hospital with
them and Carla was, she was still sort of… I don’t think she knew where
she was but her eyes were clogged up and they were trying to clean her
eyes a bit. But Giovanna was just lying there and she had a cut on her
head about that long from there right back and just all exposed. I said
to Tarcisia “Why don’t they, you know, do something with her?” and she
said “They seem to think she’s going to die.” So I went round and saw one
of the nurses, they were nuns and this nun could speak English and I said
to her “What’s, why are they not?”… she said “We’ve got nothing, we’ve
got no bandages, we’ve got nothing.” Well, she said “What we’ve got,
we’ve got very few, we are only using them for people who will not die
and she said I’m sorry but that little girl is going to die.” Which she
did the next day. They were crowded, packed in. There must have been five
hundred people in that little hospital and there were five hundred people
in that apartment.
Epilogue
Narrator
Here, outside Forlì’s Duomo, Alex and Tarcisia met on Easter Sunday in
1945, and it was not long before they decided that Tarcisia would follow
Alex to New Zealand after the war. They were lucky, and able to grasp the
promise of a new life together. Love provided the fortune that allowed
them their future, but a future that carried with it the agony of loved
ones lost. Yet today in Forlì, across the space of the main Piazza, in
the dark reverberation of her churches and sharp echoes of her narrow
streets the Duomo’s bells have risen out of destruction and speak of all
that the city witnessed, to give a voice to all those souls for whom time
was made to stand still.
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