Twelve stones to stop and rest, 12 stones to recompose a class visible from the sky. 12 stones to remember, 12 boys from the Salvemini Institute killed by a military plane on December 6, 1990. These are the words engraved on a sandstone boulder next to twelve cube-shaped seats, on the ground in a circle; in front of the entire Reno valley, up to the last hill down there, the furthest, on which on clear days the profile of the dome of the Madonna di San Luca can be glimpsed.
the slaughter
They have been there since 1998, but few know it. This is how one comes across, sometimes by chance, while visiting the Bolognese Apennines between Grizzana Morandi, Campolo, the village of La Scola, up to Montovolo, in a Path of memory, immersed in nature and spirituality, dedicated to the Salvemini massacre, of which Tuesday marks the 32nd anniversary. delicate, as if he didn’t want to disturb the sacredness, the beauty around, the feeling of peace that one feels as soon as one arrives, but each stone is a boulder for what it evokes. The route starts inside the Montovolo provincial park and develops from the Sanctuary of the Beata Vergine della Consolazione up to the leap of Santa Caterina. On the sides of the slope, among spontaneous trees, oak trees and brooms, stone elements have been inserted, one for each boy who lost his life that day, when a damaged military plane, abandoned by the pilot, crashed in the classroom 2A company experts of the branch of the Salvemini technical institute in Casalecchio di Reno: four students and the German teacher miraculously survived, the other twelve boys died; a massacre of teenagers, in which 80 other people were injured.
The flowers
The stones arranged at a distance from each other were obtained from a simple quarry split, worked by a local stonemason; stems on which glazed ceramic tiles are set, each with a spontaneous painted flower typical of the area, next to the boys’ names: rhododendron for Deborah Alutto, broom for Laura Armaroli, botton d’oro for Sara Baroncini, soldanella for Laura Corazza, primrose for Tiziana De Leo, crocus for Antonella Ferrari, arnica montana for Alessandra Gennari, l male orchid for Dario Lucchini, periwinkle for Elisabetta Patrizi, anemone for Elena Righetti, columbine for Carmen Schirinzi, gentian for Alessandra Venturi. A flower, a prayer, a reflection, even just a glance in the silence; as they pass, some leave a stone on the steles as evidence of proximity.
The Association
like a thread of memory that starts from the city and stretches up to where the sky seems to be closer. That unexpected route in that corner of the Apennines was imagined immediately after the massacre, but was created eight years later, wanted by theSalvemini Victims Associationwhich still today brings together family, friends, ex-students: In 1990 the WWF Emilia-Romagna launched a subscription for the purchase of an area of naturalistic interest near the cliff overlooking Montovolo – recalls Roberto Alutto, president of the association and pap of one of the victims — My daughter Deborah and other kids were members of the WWF and so we decided to contribute. Visiting this sacred mountain from Roman times, we thought it might be the right place to remember our boys, not to forget. Solidarity moved: the contribution of the then Province of Bologna, of the Municipality of Grizzana Morandi, of the engineers who designed it Mario Ciammitti and Alessandra Carini, of the students of the Bologna Art Institute. the little-known route is true, as if protected in a place of peace – observes the mayor of Grizzana Morandi, Franco Rubini -. Montovolo with its Sanctuary, the guest quarters is a stop on Via Mater Dei, which also touches on the path dedicated to the memory of Salvemini’s boys. a place where silence and spirituality are very strong. And that’s exactly why it was chosen. It is an honor for us to keep it.
Poetry
Not far from the church, at the beginning of the climb, a long poem engraved on two other stones; contains the verses written by an inmate of the Dozza prison: An island for all of you, tender blossoms in the wind, crushed by the burning thunder of a steel too frozen to bloom in a hundred thousand branches, an island of stillness. Because it helps us, despite everything, to love, to believe, to hope, to live. Robert Alutto he returns to it every year on that route; check the state of the stones and the need for maintenance; sometimes he happens to cross the questions of someone passing up there. He stops and tells. It is always important for us to remember and reflect together on what happened on that cold day of December 6th.
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December 4, 2022 (change December 4, 2022 | 12:19 am)
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Casalecchio, 12 memorial stones in the woods and on the summit to commemorate the Salvemini massacre