2024-03-21 14:36:54
Bolzano. The Rovereto War Museum launches an appeal for the collection of testimonies relating to the experience of the Italian legionaries, to contribute to a research project and an exhibition which will open in May.
On 7 May 1954, after almost ten years of ferocious clashes, the battle of Ðien Biên Phu marked the defeat of France in what until then had been called Indochina. Thus ended what the French called “la sale guerre”, or “the dirty war”. On the day of the seventieth anniversary of those events, 7 May 2024, the War Museum will open a photographic exhibition dedicated to a particular aspect of that story, which saw protagonists together with the French and men of other nationalities, including many Italians. “Forgotten Vietnam. Italian Legionaries in Indochina 1946-1954″ is the title of the exhibition which will be held in the Italian Historical War Museum and which introduces the very complex theme of Italian participation in a conflict which is one of the so-called “wars of decolonisation” . The Italians who fought in the French Foreign Legion in Indochina were between 7 and 10,000; about a thousand died in action, from wounds or disease. Hundreds were mutilated or suffered very serious psychological trauma; others survived in prison camps. Their experience has long been removed from the historical memory of our country, but their story, in addition to documenting one of the conflicts that plagued South-East Asia, offers a glimpse of post-war Italy and opens a reflection on the pervasiveness of phenomenon of “voluntarism” in twentieth-century conflicts. The exhibition will display images and materials made available by family members of the legionaries involved in the conflict. Numerous photographs and testimonies – which will become a permanent part of the heritage preserved by the Museum – were collected by the Alto Adige journalist Luca Fregona, a passionate scholar of the story of the Italian legionaries for years, to whom he dedicated two books (“Soldati di misfortune ” and “Over there where you die”). Together with the photos, which come from fourteen different personal and family archives, there will be autobiographical testimonies and some objects and documents from the Museum’s collections to document the experience of volunteer soldiers in the French Foreign Legion.
The appeal
«Considering that there are not numerous material and documentary sources available to historians to reconstruct those events – explains the director of the Museum Francesco Frizzera – it is aimed at anyone who owns objects, memories, photographs or other testimonies that can contribute to the exhibition or research . The exhibition, in fact, is part of a broader research project entitled “Returning Foreign Fighters (ReFF). The Demobilization of Italian Transnational War Volunteers, 1860s-1970s” conducted by the University of Trento together with the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and the University “Ca’ Foscari” of Venice, with the collaboration of the Museum of Rovereto. The research unit based in Trento will specifically deal with the events of the legionaries repatriated after their experiences in Indochina and Algeria and the researchers in charge will have access to the archive materials preserved by the Museum.
Anyone in possession of it and willing to collaborate can report it to the Museum’s historical archive. It will be possible to make the materials available temporarily for study or exhibition, or to deposit or donate them to the Museum, even anonymously, to guarantee their conservation and valorization. Interested parties can contact archive@museodellaguerra.it.
The French Foreign Legion, founded in 1831, was used in the 19th and 20th centuries in various scenarios, especially when it was preferred to avoid sending “regular” French troops. In the colonies, in particular, the legionaries were used for repression tasks. Voluntary enlistment involved very tough training and required self-sacrifice and total loyalty to the force, guaranteeing French citizenship and a new identity after being arrested.
For this reason, among the ranks of the Légion étrangère, many men fleeing from poverty (although they were often economic migrants who entered France illegally in search of work) or from justice also find refuge.
The Indochina War, then under French control, began in 1945 when the independence of Vietnam was proclaimed under the political leadership of Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh liberation movement. The clashes between the Viet Minh and the French immediately took on the contours of a ferocious and merciless war and were soon aggravated by the conflicts of the Cold War: in 1950 the communist regimes of Moscow and Beijing recognized the government of Ho Chi Minh, while the United States began to support the French. Fighting this war are mainly non-French soldiers: Vietnamese collaborators, Senegalese, North Africans and thousands of Italian, German, Belgian, Spanish, Polish and Hungarian legionnaires. The Italian contingent, in the foreign legion, was the largest after the German one.
The exhibition, which will open on 7 May in Rovereto, will be created with the support of Athesia Verlag and with the contribution of the Autonomous Province of Trento, the University of Trento, and the Municipality of Rovereto.
2024-03-21 14:36:54