2024-05-11 03:57:21
Rovereto. Sold out and great success for the inauguration of the “Forgotten Vietnam” exhibition at Historical War Museum of Rovereto. The exhibition, which tells the story of the young Italians who fought in Vietnam from 1946 to 1954 with the French Foreign Legion in a brutal and ferocious war of colonial reconquest, was born from the collaboration between the museum structure and the editor-in-chief of our newspaper Luca Mopauthor of two books on this topic, Soldiers of Misfortune and Over There Where You Die, published by Athesia.
The inauguration, not surprisingly, took place on the seventieth anniversary of the defeat of Dien Bien Phu. The French stronghold fell after 56 days of siege by the Viet Minhthe Vietnam Liberation Army, led by General Jap.
He was present at the inauguration Nguyen Thai Hoc, Counselor of the Vietnam Embassy in Italy who underlined how the exhibition, telling the drama of thousands of young people used as cannon fodder, is a warning against all forms of colonialism. “Our victory at Dien Bien Phu – he said – was not just a victory for the Vietnamese people: it marked the collapse of colonialism in the Far East, and beyond.”
The president of the Museum Alberto Miorandi he explained how the choice to investigate pages removed from the memory of our country “helps us to understand the motivations and circumstances that led many young people, even very young people, to sign the contract and end up in Tonkin. We thus address the very complex topic of Italian participation in one of the so-called “decolonization wars”. Theirs is a story of “defeated” on the field or socially. An “uncomfortable” affair that was long forgotten, also for political reasons.”
The director of the Museum, Francesco Frizzera, illustrated the materials from twenty-one funds: photos, documents, letters, uniforms, personal effects made available by children, grandchildren, brothers of the Italian Képi Blancs. Also present at the inauguration were family members – arriving from Piedmont, Val d’Aosta, Veneto, Liguria, Friuli, Lombardy – of dead Indochina legionaries or survivors with traumas that affected the rest of their lives.
Finally, there were also many Italian legionaries who, faced with the atrocities seen, suffered or committed, decided to desert and join the Viet Minh. The exhibition, in addition to Fregona and Frizzera, was curated by Davide Zendri, Anna Pizzetti and Nicola Fontana. It was created with the support of Athesia and with the contribution of the Province of Trento, the University of Trento and the Municipality of Rovereto.
2024-05-11 03:57:21