They will never erase the trace of art | Opinion

Madrid

As soon as I return, I find out that the statue of García Lorca in Madrid has been vandalized again. And I think of Paolo. Paolo is the bartender at my hotel in Rome. And you will see.

Near that hotel, in Via della Madonna dei MontiTwenty shine on the ground cobblestones bronze color with twenty names bathed in blood. It is a memorial with the dates of birth, arrest and execution of all members of an extended and southern family. Two synonyms of horror also stand out on the stones: Auschwitz and Fosse Ardeatine. In that revenge massacre of the Nazis, perpetrated in 1944, when Rome was already open city, 335 innocent Italians, ten for every German killed in a partisan action, were coldly murdered. Women and children, including babies, went missing at Auschwitz. All the men were shot, against the wall, in the Ardeatine.

Wretches very similar to our current neo-Nazis tore out those sacred stones in 2018. And they were restored. With the perseverance of memory.

Paolo tells me, before I leave, that culture is very important in his family: his father is called Othello and one of his uncles is Amleto, after Shakespeare; another, Spartaco, for freedom, and the fourth, Mario, for the Cavaradossi that in Tosca rebels against tyranny.

Paolo does not know that, inspired by him, I will tell you: They may destroy the monuments, but they will never erase the trace of art, nor that of the victims of the bastards.