Marisa Diena was an Italian-Jewish resistance fighter active in World War II. She was born on September 29, 1916, in Turin, Italy. [1] She was a member of the Garibaldi Brigades, a communist partisan resistance group operating in the Torre Pellice mountains. [1] Described as "small and pretty, with curly reddish hair" by fellow partisan Silvia Pons, [2] Marisa was a vital member of Italian resistance efforts. She died on May 8, 2013.
Marisa Diena was born to Jewish parents Giorgina and Mario Diena in 1916, in the midst of post-WWI turmoil. They were a middle class family, her father being a printer with a local factory in Turin, though financial irregularity caused him to spend some time in prison. [2] She had two younger brothers, Giorgio and Franco. During her early childhood in Italy, fascism was on the rise, spearheaded by Benito Mussolini.
On March 23, 1919, when Marisa was three, Benito Mussolini officially launched his fascist movement, officially known as the Italian Combat Fascists. In 1921, the movement gained a seat in congress and was officially recognized as the National Fascist Party. Shortly after, in October 1922, the Fascist party marched on Rome and seized control of the Italian government, declaring Mussolini the new Prime Minister. Marisa was eight at the time. By 1928, all opposing political parties were abolished and democratic pretenses were discarded, cementing Mussolini as the effective dictator of Italy. [3] As a child growing up in a fascist-run state, Marisa was encouraged to embrace fascism. [1] However, sometime after June 1940, when Mussolini declared war on France and England, [4] Marisa and her family moved to Rome. They moved back in 1943 after Mussolini fell from power. [5] On September 8, 1943, Italy joined forces with Germany and was relabeled as the Italian Social Republic, conceding to Nazi control. [6]
Following the German invasion of 1943, the standing underground opposition to fascism emerged as direct, open, and armed resistance. A few days after Nazi occupation of Turin, Italy, Marisa left to join resistance fighting in the mountains of Torre Pellice. [1] She joined the 4th Garibaldi Brigades, a communist partisan resistance group, headed by Pompeo Colajanni. [5] Opposed to the growing Fascist power, the Garibaldi unit was responsible for establishing local committees in the nearby Torre Pollice region in order to further organize strikes and distribute rations. [1] They were the largest umbrella organization of communist partisan groups from 1943 to 1945. Her brothers Franco and Giorgio Diena were also a part of the resistance fighting. [2]
As a woman who passed as Aryan, Marisa was able to use the inherent prejudice against women in her favor, traveling unnoticed and unscrutinized by Nazi forces. During this time she went by the name of Mara, her nom de guerre for her partisan actions, acquiring false identification papers for her activities. Due to her ability to move around in broad daylight, Marisa initially acted as a courier and message deliverer, riding her bicycle from home to home to spread news and intel. The information she collected was then relayed back to the brigade commander. She also took on the role of a trainer, instructing other local women and teaching them to be part of the resistance fighting. Marisa was promoted to the Vice-Commander of Information services for her brigade in 1944. [1] [5] That same year, on September 26, 1944, Marisa's 19-year-old brother Franco was gunned down in the mountains during a skirmish with fascist soldiers. [7] [8]
With over 300,000 partisan fighters in Northern Italy, a national liberation committee was created in the early months of 1945. Collectively they pushed forward to liberate Italy from fascist control, Marisa's brigade liberating Turin on April 25, 1945. [9]
Marisa continued to remain active in her country's politics after the end of World War Two, remaining involved with the Italian Communist Party. In 1949, she joined the PCI national female school as a teacher, returning to Turin in 1953 and becoming the female leader of the communist Piedmontese regional committee. She ceased her official commitment to the party in 1957 and became a middle school teacher in 1958. She published an autobiography of her life in 1970, titled "Guerriglia e autogoverno: Brigate Garibaldi nel Piemonte occidentale 1943-1945", [10] and continued to involve herself in the National Association of Italian Partisans throughout the remainder of her life. [5] She died on May 8, 2013, in her home country of Italy. [9]
The Italian Social Republic, known prior to December 1943 as the National Republican State of Italy, but more popularly known as the Republic of Salò, was a German puppet state and Fascist rump state with limited diplomatic recognition that was created during the latter part of World War II. It existed from the beginning of the German occupation of Italy in September 1943 until the surrender of Axis troops in Italy in May 1945. The German occupation triggered widespread national resistance against it and the Italian Social Republic, leading to the Italian Civil War.
Luigi Longo, also known as Gallo, was an Italian communist politician and general secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1964 to 1972. He was also the first foreigner to be awarded an Order of Lenin.
The Italian Resistance consisted of all the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social Republic during the Second World War in Italy from 1943 to 1945. As a diverse anti-fascist and anti-nazist movement and organisation, the Resistenza opposed Nazi Germany and its Fascist puppet state regime, the Italian Social Republic, which the Germans created following the Nazi German invasion and military occupation of Italy by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS from 8 September 1943 until 25 April 1945.
The Auxiliary Corps of the Black Shirts' Action Squads, most widely known as the Black Brigades, was one of the Fascist paramilitary groups, organized and run by the Republican Fascist Party operating in the Italian Social Republic, during the final years of World War II, and after the signing of the Italian Armistice in 1943. They were officially led by Alessandro Pavolini, former Minister of Culture of the fascist era during the last years of Fascist Italy.
Giustizia e Libertà was an Italian anti-fascist resistance movement, active from 1929 to 1945. The movement was cofounded by Carlo Rosselli, Ferruccio Parri, who later became Prime Minister of Italy, Emilio Lussu, Sandro Pertini, who became President of Italy, and other Italian anti-fascist refugees.
The Italian Civil War was a civil war in the Kingdom of Italy fought during the Italian campaign of World War II between Italian fascists and Italian partisans and, to a lesser extent, the Italian Co-belligerent Army.
The Arditi del Popolo was an Italian militant anti-fascist group founded at the end of June 1921 to resist the rise of Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party and the violence of the Blackshirts (squadristi) paramilitaries. It grouped revolutionary trade-unionists, socialists, communists, anarchists, republicans, anti-capitalists, as well as some former military officers, and was co-founded by Giuseppe Mingrino, Argo Secondari and Gino Lucetti – who tried to assassinate Mussolini on 11 September 1926 – the deputy Guido Picelli and others. The Arditi del Popolo were an offshoot of the Arditi elite troops, who had previously occupied Fiume in 1919 behind the poet Gabriele d'Annunzio, who proclaimed the Italian Regency of Carnaro. Those who split to form the Arditi del Popolo were close to the anarchist Argo Secondari and were supported by Mario Carli. The formazioni di difesa proletaria later merged with them. The Arditi del Popolo gathered approximately 20,000 members in summer 1921.
Walter Audisio was an Italian partisan and communist politician, also known by his nom-de-guerreColonel Valerio. A member of the Italian resistance movement during World War II, Audisio was involved in the death of Benito Mussolini, and personally executed the dictator and his mistress Clara Petacci according to the generally accepted account of the event.
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian dictator who founded and led the National Fascist Party (PNF). He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922, until his deposition in 1943, as well as Duce of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919, until his execution in 1945. As a dictator and founder of fascism, Mussolini inspired the international spread of fascist movements during the interwar period.
The Porzûs massacre was an intra-partisan massacre of the Italian resistance during late World War II, on 7 February 1945. It saw the killings of 17 partisans belonging to the Brigate Osoppo, a strongly Catholic formation, by communist partisans of the Gruppi di Azione Patriottica. Four members of Brigate Osoppo were killed when a group of them was ambushed, while the survivors were taken prisoner and summarily executed in the following days. The event is still the object of study and controversy in Italy.
Riccardo Fedel, also known by his nom de guerreLibero was an Italian anti-fascist, Communist political fighter, and partisan leader.
The Brigate Fiamme Verdi was an Italian Partisan Resistance Group, of predominantly Roman Catholic orientation, which operated in Italy during World War II.
Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were opposed by many countries forming the Allies of World War II and dozens of resistance movements worldwide. Anti-fascism has been an element of movements across the political spectrum and holding many different political positions such as anarchism, communism, pacifism, republicanism, social democracy, socialism and syndicalism as well as centrist, conservative, liberal and nationalist viewpoints.
Fascist Italy is a term which is used to describe the Kingdom of Italy when it was governed by the National Fascist Party from 1922 to 1943 with Benito Mussolini as prime minister and dictator. The Italian Fascists imposed totalitarian rule and they also crushed political opposition, while they simultaneously promoted economic modernization, traditional social values and a rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church.
The Italian partisan brigades were armed formations involved in the Italian resistance during the World War II.
The Brigate Garibaldi or Garibaldi Brigades were partisan units aligned with the Italian Communist Party active in the armed resistance against both German and Italian fascist forces during World War II.
The Brigate Osoppo-Friuli or Osoppo-Friuli Brigades were autonomous partisan formations founded in the headquarter of the Archbishop Seminary of Udine on 24 December 1943 by partisan volunteers of mixed ideologies, already active in Carnia and Friuli before the Badoglio Proclamation of 8 September. The partisans in this brigade adhered to various and often conflicting ideologies, including both secularism and Catholicism, as well as socialism and liberalism.
Claudia Ruggerini was an Italian partisan, activist, doctor, and neuropsychiatrist. During World War II, she joined the Italian Communist Party to overthrow the government of Benito Mussolini in July 1943.
The Patriotic Action Groups, formed by the general command of the Garibaldi Brigades at the end of October 1943, were small groups of partisans that were born on the initiative of the Italian Communist Party to operate mainly in the city, based on the experience of the French Resistance. The militants of the GAP were called Gappisti. By extension, the less numerous partisan socialist and shareholder city units were also called GAP.
The Lucetti Battalion was an anarchist partisan brigade that operated in the surroundings of Carrara.