The dream has come true!

Diana has arrived in Maglie, and was warmly and joyfully welcomed by both citizens and officials of the town. The local newspaper report is in Italian, of course, but with a translation program you'll be able to get a decent translation. :-)
Diana delivered a moving speech on the village square:


And she received an official certificate, too!

May I kindly remind you of the donation button for Diana's and Gamin's journey back to France? Thank you so much for your help! The Translatress :-)

There and back again - Hin und wieder zurück

This is the translatress speaking. ;-) Diana will reach Maglie, Aldo Moro's birthplace in a few days, but before we celebrate this, there is an urgent matter I want to share with you all.

As you know from following Diana's and Gamin's adventures on their long journey here or on Facebook, there have been a few accidents and mishaps on the way. Some of them turned out to be rather expensive and have depleted Diana's last funds. Thank goodness the lovely people of Italy have been ever so amazingly generous with their support on the way. But Diana still needs to get herself and Gamin back to France somehow, and this will cost money.

Please donate, even if you can only spare a few Euro! Every little bit helps the intrepid travellers to get home safe and sound!

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Hier spricht die Übersetzerin. ;-) Diana wird in ein paar Tagen an Aldo Moros Geburtsort in Maglie ankommen, aber bevor wir dies feiern, möchte ich Euch gerne etwas mitteilen.

Ihr folgt ja Dianas und Gamins Abenteuern auf ihrer langen Reise hier oder auf Facebook und habt daher bestimmt mitbekommen, dass es auf dem Weg ein paar Unfälle und Pannen gegeben hat. Einige davon haben sich als ziemlich kostspielig erwiesen und Dianas letzte Reserven aufgezehrt. Zum Glück sind die lieben Italienerinnen und Italiener sehr großzügig mit ihrer Unterstützung auf dem Weg. Aber Diana und Gamin müssen ja irgendwie wieder zurück nach Frankreich kommen, und das kostet Geld.

Bitte spendet, auch wenn Ihr nur ein paar Euro geben könnt! Jeder Cent hilft, damit die beiden furchtlosen Reisenden wieder gesund und glücklich nach Hause kommen!

Remembering the forgotten dead

Aldo Moro is very much forgotten, but the five members of his escort, who died on March 16^th, 1978, on Via Fani, are remembered even less.

Who knows their names? Who knows where they are buried?

The whole attack on Via Fani only lasted a few minutes. The five men never stood a chance. They died in a hailstorm of bullets.

Today we know that almost all of the deadly shots were fired from one single weapon. While the other attackers fired wild fusillades as a distraction, one single man seems to have been the precision killer.
Was it really one single member of the Red Brigades? Or a member of the CIA, who verifiably had been present?
He says that he had been in the area privately and merely by chance, having been invited to have lunch with friends.
Until today, the statements of the members of the Red Brigades are full of contradictions and do not fit together.

Oreste Leonardis, Raffaele Iozzino, Giulio Rivera and Domenico Ricci died on location. Raffaele Iozzino had managed to fight his way out of the car and tried to stop the killers with his pistol. He was shot on the street.

Franco Zizzi was still alive when everything was over and the rescue team arrived. He died soon afterwards in the hospital.

“The armed guard was eliminated”, it was stated later in a communiqué of the Red Brigades. These words sealed once and forever what had happened during these cruel minutes on Via Fani: the shift of public perception. Living human beings with hopes and dreams became an anonymous entity, the “armed guard”.

The relatives and friends of the five men mourned in loneliness, overshadowed by the drama of Aldo Moro, who was still imprisoned and wrote letters, fighting for his life.

I had always believed myself to be empathic, to have grasped and shared the suffering in nights full of tears. But only now, on this journey, I begin to truly understand the full dimension of this tragedy.