“Europe needs a shared moment of remembrance,” said Eurocities President Dario Nardella, who is also mayor of the Italian city of Florence. “Let us pause for a minute to mourn the dead, to honor those suffering from the aftermath of the pandemic, and to reflect on our own situation – to take a deep breath in the hectic everyday struggle we all experience.” To this end, on March 24th at noon there is to be silence for one minute.
Around 200 cities from almost 40 countries have come together in the association. From Germany, Berlin, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Essen, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart are among them.
As a spokesman explained on Sunday, the mayors also want to emphasize with the minute’s silence that the pandemic has triggered a cross-border crisis. Since events are not possible at the moment, everyone should observe this minute’s silence for themselves. To support a shared experience, Eurocities offers a video live stream with Dario Nardella on YouTube.
Remembrance day in Italy
Italy had already remembered its more than 100,000 corona deaths on Thursday. Prime Minister Mario Draghi laid a wreath in Bergamo, then he remembered the corona victims with a minute’s silence. A year ago, Bergamo was one of the cities hardest hit by the pandemic in the world. In March 2020 alone, 670 people died of COVID-19 in the city of 120,000. The images of army vehicles driving dozens of coffins from Bergamo shocked the world exactly a year ago. Draghi emphasized that Italy would continue the corona vaccination campaign “with the same intensity” as before.
The northern Italian city was the “epicenter of the first wave of the pandemic in Europe” and has become a “symbol of tragedy,” said Mayor Giorgio Gori during the memorial service. Bergamo will also be “the symbolic city of rebirth” and send “a positive message and hope” to the rest of Italy.
kle / qu (dpa, dpae, afp, eurocities.eu)
– .
