Ginetta Chirici (1924-1944)

Ginetta Chirici was born in Pistoia on November 24, 1924, to Gino Chirici and Bianca Mazzei: a merchant and a housewife^[1]. The family emigrated to the north of Italy for Gino’s work: their youngest son Renato was born in Cremona on September 28, 1929, then the family settled in Bologna, where Gino ran a business together with his brother^[2]. The Chirici family resided in an apartment in the center, at 49 of Via Andrea Costa^[3].

Having finished elementary school Ginetta enrolled at the “Laura Bassi” Magistral Institute in September 1940, attending course A^[4]. During her first year, she was a classmate of Iole Pasquali, who would militate in the “Giustizia e Libertà” brigade in Lizzano in Belvedere, and Ivonne Poggi, who would be a partisan in the “Tampellini” battalion of the 2nd “Paolo Garibaldi” brigade in San Giorgio di Piano^[5].

During the school year of 1942-1943 she was enrolled in class IIIA and obtained a magisterial qualification in order to work as a teacher^[6].

After the first air raids on Bologna in 1942, the family decided to move to the Apennines, an area considered safer, and found a home in the vicinity of Murazze, not far from Vado, in the Setta valley. The father continued his work activities by traveling daily to Bologna, and three times a week Ginetta also accompanied him to the city to attend classes^[7].

Having completed her high school studies, in 1943, she enrolled in the Faculty of Magisterium while engaging in volunteer work to combat illiteracy among peasant families living in the scattered cottages in the area around Marzabotto^[8]. In fact, the area was endemically poor and the absence of spaces to be used as schools made it difficult for the poorer classes to attend: in fact, it was only possible to attend the fifth grade in the main town, so that teachers were forced to teach three shifts and often had to make students return home early due to a lack of classrooms^[9].

It was with this first nucleus, which operated in the area of Cà di Zermino, not far from the Murazze, that Ginetta began her courier activity. Her enrollment at the University allowed her to travel to Bologna without suspicion and made her able to take and carry information, report the movements of the occupying troops, the initiatives of the local fascist republicans, report rumors and indiscretions or get supplies to the partisans^[20][21].

Between April and May 1944, after receiving the radio signal, the Band Command obtained two substantial launches from The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) containing a large quantity of weapons, a fact that made it possible to accommodate many young men who wished to join the rebels^[22]. Among them was Renato Chirici, who came into contact with the rebels through his sister and was accompanied to the mountains by a courier in mid-May^[23]. Once he reached the formation he recounted: “I was afraid every time, it was always a dangerous situation. The partisan’s war was to attack, then retreat […] One had no sure destination, after each action one sought shelter […] Farmers, students, a bit of all the Italian people, especially women. The fascist idea of women was medieval, on a feudal level, especially in the countryside. While, it was in the countryside, in the mountains, where there was poverty and the struggle for bread and polenta on the table, where people worked from morning to night, that’s where the partisan woman was born”^[24].

In late August 1944, when the “Red Star-Wolf” returned to Monte Sole after a brief stay in the Pietramala area, the Brigade reorganized into battalions: Ginetta was framed in the fourth, commanded by Alfonso Ventura ,whose deputy commander was 18-year-old Cleto Comellini (Tito). This group operated in the area of Cà Dizzola, near Casaglia church and cemetery^[25][26].

The intense activity of the “Red Star-Wolf” during the summer had made the communication routes unsafe and had therefore convinced the German Commands – who considered the area strategic for the Wehrmacht’s retreat northward – to operate a large roundup to “clean up” the area, entrusting the task to Major Walther Reder, who commanded a unit specialized in counter guerrilla warfare^[27]. These units had the task of ensuring the holding of the front line on the Gothic Line: this territory had in fact turned into the front line as a result of the Allied autumn offensive against the defensive route of which Monte Sole represented an important strategic stronghold. The operation started on the morning of September 29 and the partisans, pressed by the arrival of Nazi troops, were taking refuge on Monte Sole passing through Casaglia. Many civilians who were seeking refuge in the church had also headed toward Casaglia: among them was Ginetta’s mother, Bianca Mazzei. A group of Nazis entered the church, brought the people out and ordered them to head towards Dizzola. The group of hostages was stopped by another patrol of Nazis near the Casaglia Cemetery. The one who commanded the patrol invited them to enter, ordering his men to force its iron gates: once inside, they grouped them in front of the chapel, and mounted a large machine gun on a tripod and began firing. Another Nazi soldier also fired a large automatic weapon. The massacre was completed within minutes^[28].

As reconstructed by historiography, the Monte Sole massacre was a set of massacres carried out in the time span September 29-October 5, 1944, on the territories of Marzabotto, Graziana Morandi and Monzuno^[29]. On October 4 or 5, an unspecified SS unit arrived at Ca’ Beguzzi, where some people who had escaped the massacres of the previous days, in some cases wounded, had taken refuge. The Nazi soldiers brought all the men who were good for work out of the shelter and divided them into squads. Once the work was completed, the men were taken to the edge of an escarpment to be eliminated: some of them managed to survive because they were not wounded  mortally or because they jumped before they were hit. Among them was Gino Chirici who managed to save himself^[30].

Upon their return to the shelter they found out that all the people they had left there, that is, about twenty women, children and the elderly, had been shot at the door of the houses or in their beds: among the people killed in this location-with death ascertained on October 5, 1944- is Ginetta Chirici^[31][32].

After the Liberation Day, Renato Chirici recalled: “My mother and sister were killed. My birthday is the eve of my mom’s death. Cowardly fate. When I returned after the Liberation I was alone: I remember that the first night I slept alone in the house in Bologna. My poor father was trying to make ends meet. He was trying to find what he had left in Bologna but he found nothing”^[33].

On April 19, 1995, the University of Bologna awarded Ginetta Chirici the first Honorary Degree of the Faculty of Education^[34]. The municipalities of Monzuno and Pistoia dedicated a street to her. She is remembered in the shrine in Piazza Nettuno and in the monument to the Fallen Partisans in Villa Spada, both in Bologna^[35].