Florence, the map of bunkers and anti-aircraft shelters
Photo Old Florence Mia
The video of little Amelia Anisovych – the Ukrainian girl who thrilled the world two weeks ago, singing the song Let it go from the Disney Frozen film, in an anti-aircraft bunker – rekindled the nightmare of shelters in the elderly during the second war world. In Florence, thousands of people sought salvation, with their hearts in their throats at every sound of the siren: in the undergrounds of churches, in the cellars of condominiums, in the Poggetto tunnel that was never completed and became a makeshift shelter, in the basements of buildings with large R or I, to report the hydrants to extinguish the fires that broke out after the bombing. Which in the city were very heavy, especially in Campo di Marte. To remember, even today, a plaque in via Mannelli: The memory of the 215 victims of 25 September 1943 remains a warning to future generations of the horror of war, the true enemy of humanity.
The Facebook page Vecchia Firenze mia offers many points of research, on the buildings that hosted the Florentines during the terrible years of construction. In a 1940s manifesto, for example, here is the list of public refuges on this side of the Arno for those who do not have a private one at their disposal. In the central area of the city, the list – which shows a toponymy rather faithful to the current one, except for the structure dedicated to the martyr of the fascist revolution Giovanni Berta in the square in Costanzo Ciano, the current Piazza della Libertà – starts from the basement of the basilica of San Lorenzo: 2,000 seats. Many of those places are still present today. Up to 550 units could be accessed at the Galileo high school in via Martelli. Palazzo Vecchio could instead accommodate 600 people, while the then Peruzzi school in via Lamarmora contained 900 citizens. The Dante high school, in Piazza della Vittoria, had a capacity of 450 people, the viale Strozzi underpass to 500. In Oltrarno, on the other hand, in addition to schools, there was no shortage of buildings open to citizens. For example, number 19 in via Guicciardini, equipped with a shelter capable of hosting 560 people, or number 45 in via Maggio, with entrance from Borgo Tegolaio 7.
Different of those refuges have recently been rediscovered. Opened in 2016, the workers of the environmental management of the Municipality were speechless – during a repaving of the garden, at the institute including via Dino del Garbo – in front of the anti-aircraft bunker sealed by the tiles of the internal courtyard: the memory was lost – told the president Alessandro Bussotti – Some teachers say that many retired janitors talked about this tunnel, but we never managed to understand where it was. After the conflict, the large rooms had in fact been used as a deposit, amassing benches and chairs with an inkwell. In 2012, however, don Pedro Daniel Dalio, parish administrator of Sant’Ilario a Colombaia, found another user bunker by the residents of Porta Romana near the church. The Gazzettino del Chianti, in the words of the photographer Lorenzo Bojola, described the refuge as a U-shaped space: The perimeter walls are in stone and the vault in. The refuge has terracotta vents that emerge from the ground above. The state of conservation is perfect, considering how it has been closed for more than 65 years. The measurements are: 2 meters wide; 2.25 meters high.
A narrow space, like the one described by Maurizio Daliana, resident of via San Giovanni Gualberto, at Q2: That of our home – says Daliana – perhaps one of the last spaces of this kind still preserved in the neighborhood. There are no significant elements that refer to the war, apart from the fact that the only part of the small condominium built with reinforced concrete. It can still be accessed from the basement: 2 meters wide by 3.5 meters and 2.10 meters high. My grandparents lived there during the war. For them it was a tragic moment: he never tells me anything. On city walls, pictograms are now a rarity. However, there are still visible, among the various streets, in via Chiara, via Santo Spirito, lungarno Soderini, via Dupr and via Chiarugi.
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23 March 2022 | 10:24
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