43 roses in Polcevera, Genoa remembers the Morandi Bridge massacre – Photos – Photo 1 of 7

Let no one forget what happened in Genoa on August 14, 2018, when the collapse of the Morandi Bridge took 43 lives and destroyed an entire neighborhood, splitting the city in two. Let no one ever forget out of thirst for justice, out of respect for the dead and the living who lost someone and for the city that knew how to raise its head. Six years after that massacre, this is the meaning of the white roses dropped into the little water of the Polcevera, the stream that hosted in its bed the clay feet of the bridge, during the ceremony to remember that cursed day.
English: “The images of that dramatic event belong to the collective memory of the Republic and recall the shared responsibility of ensuring freedom of movement and the absence of risks for all users, protecting the country’s infrastructure heritage – wrote President Sergio Mattarella in a message to the mayor of Genoa Marco Bucci -. Responsibilities must be definitively ascertained and I hope that the work of the competent authorities will be carried out with the effectiveness and promptness necessary for any sense of justice: the timely process of reconstruction of the connection via the Ponte Genova San Giorgio does not, in fact, constitute an extenuating circumstance for what happened”. Giorgia Meloni also made her voice heard: “Memory, rebirth, justice. Today – wrote the Prime Minister – we honor the 43 victims of that tragedy and we embrace, in mind and heart, their families and loved ones. Today we all feel a little Genoese, children of a proud and proud city that was morally bent and physically broken in two, but that since then has also been able to get up and move forward. But that Bridge – he adds – reminds the nation of the many, too many, questions that still remain unanswered. Doing justice and identifying responsibilities for what happened, establishing once and for all guilt and omissions, is a moral duty, as well as a judicial one”.

It is impossible for Genoa to forget that tragedy. So once again and for the sixth consecutive time, in the clearing of memory they all gathered: the relatives of the victims with Egle Possetti, the mayor of Genoa Marco Bucci (and who can forget his phrase, said a few hours after the collapse: “Genoa is not on its knees”), the interim governor Alessandro Piana, the archbishop of Genoa Tasca and the imam Salah Hussein, all repeating something that, as has been underlined several times this morning, needs to be said once again: “it should not have happened”. There are many thoughts and memories of politics and government whose echo reaches the clearing until 11:36, the exact time the bridge collapsed. At that moment the silence of men, interrupted by the screams of the sirens of the ships in port, by the dark ringing of the bells of the diocese and by the soft falling of white roses in the Polcevera, reminded everyone of what happened six years ago, what happened not by fate or misfortune but by neglect. And it will be the Memorial to remember it, the work conceived by the architect Boeri destined to be a space “of atonement, perennial memory, historical knowledge, constant warning, against every attempt to make collective memory cloudy, which unfortunately is fading over time”, as Egle Possetti said.
The red and white roses of the wreaths sent by the Presidency of the Republic and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers bow their heads under the torrid heat of this day suspended in time. Those who do not pray remain attentive to the words spoken from the stage, those who have faith take refuge in the hope that is woven into the speeches of Archbishop Tasca and Imam Salah, but everyone’s emotions are shaken by that Requiescant, that Riposo in pace performed by the soloists of the Carlo Felice. “Riposo in pace” which in this case also and above all means justice and truth.