Antifascism at Benedetti Lyceum

From the testimony of Ivone Chinello, known as “Cesco,” a student at the Benedetti High School.

“Fascism seemed to me, as it did to all my classmates, to be the natural face of Italy, having been implanted with the virus of the ‘great fatherland,’ which had built its great destiny. It was impossible to escape, except when someone would tear down the veil, often causally”.

In 1939-1940, at the Benedetti High School, on the orders of the fascist organizations, the students who had left the school held some demonstrations in favor of entering the war on the side of Germany.

Cesco Chinello had taken part one morning with some classmates; when they returned to the classroom, the young history and philosophy teacher Sandro Gallo confronted them with vehement words: “You young people, full of modern civilization, kings, emperors, and duces, demonstrate for the war and I’ll screw you.” He asked them questions and gave them 3 or 4. The veil was pierced! Chinello was shocked: a life lesson, a “didactic attack to influence consciences.”

From that moment on, he began to think differently, to have a different relationship with the school, and to become an anti-fascist. Chinello recalls that in his class, teachers and students were all anti-fascist except for one. Benedetti had become an actual center of resistance.

TO LEARN MORE, TOUCH CESCO CHINELLO, THE SECOND PERSON IN THE FRONT ROW FROM THE RIGHT.