This first year of a special commemoration in Italy gave Pope Leo a chance to repeat one of life's most important lessons: learn from the mistakes of the past.
Pope Leo XIV acknowledged the town of Pescantina, Italy, after praying the midday Angelus on September 20, assuring the residents of his blessing and making a call to action to people across the globe.
I send my blessing to the people of Pescantina, near Verona, who today gather around the Monument to the Former Internees to remember those who were deported and held prisoner during the Second World War.
He said that the local commemoration in Pescantina is a call to all of us:
I do so in order to emphasize that we must not forget, but rather learn from history so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
September 20 was named last year as a national day of remembrance specifically for the thousands of Italian soldiers who refused to join the Italian Social Republic (RSI) and to continue the war alongside Nazi Germany. This year was the first celebration of the day since the designation was passed.
On this date in 1943, Adolf Hilter ordered that captured Italian soldiers no longer be treated as prisoners of war, as the Geneva Convention states. This change removed important legal protections and exposed hundreds of thousands of Italians soldiers to forced labor, extreme hardship, and ultimately for many, death at Nazi camps.
One location in particular, Pescantina, saw many of these soldiers pass through at the Balconi railroad station, along with many other detainees. The station not only carried Italian military internees (IMI) towards those Nazi camps and prisons in Germany and elsewhere starting in September 1943, but from 1945 to 1947 it was a major reception and aid center.
The people of Pescantina gather around The Monument to the Former Internees (Monumento agli ex internati) to honor those lost and those who returned.
In 1966 Mirko Vucetich designed the intricate monument next to the Balconi railway station, with five steps leading to walls of barbed wire with outstretched, imploring hands, while a tall cross stands at the center, also made of barbed wire and incorporating the Star of David. The inscription at the base reads (in essence): “Here where you arrive, O brothers of our Fallen, only memory returns, but one does not die in vain for the love of justice….”
Around 650,000 Italian military personnel were interred in German camps after September 1943 for refusing to continue fighting for the Axis or the Italian Social Republic. Many of these passed through Pescantina’s railway station on their way to the camps. Roughly 50,000 of them died and never returned.
The Pope’s words, “... that we must not forget …” resonate not just with Italians, but with all people, particularly during this difficult time of current events and climate of war. The Pope’s message reminds us of the dignity of human life and the importance of protecting life at all costs. We should not forget such suffering, but as he says, “rather learn from history so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past.”
