Liborio Baldanza 1899 - 1945

Born 2.8.1899 in Geraci Siculo
Died 3.4.1945 in auf dem Todesmarsch von Hinterbrühl nach Mauthausen

Biography

At the age of 16, Liborio Baldanza began work at the Cantieri Navali Riuniti wharf in Palermo and started attending the technical night school in the city. One year later, however, he had to leave school when he was called up for military service. In June 1918 he was drafted into the navy, where he remained for 34 months. After his discharge he left his family and Sicily and moved to Milan, where he quickly found work.

Until 1925 he worked for various companies in Milan: Ravarini & Castoldi, Moto Garelli, the Carlo Borghi bicycle factory, Magneti Marelli and at the Lombard Steel and Iron Works in Sesto San Giovanni. In May 1925 he was taken on by Ercole Marilli in Sesto San Giovanni, just as the government turned into a dictatorship.

In this climate of totalitarianism and repression, Libero began his struggle against Fascism and, together with friends and colleagues who shared his ideals of liberty and his socialist beliefs, he participated in the resistance against the regime, took part in underground meetings and organised sabotage campaigns.

During this period, he met a pretty, spirited secretary from the Aosta Valley at Ercole Marelli, Anna Perret, who likewise refused to silently accept repression and took an active stance against it. They fell in love and married in May 1929. Due to Libero’s multiple arrests, it was seven years before they had a child, a son named Dimitri. In the thirties and forties he was arrested repeatedly by the Fascist police. His arrest in 1931 cost him his job. He was sentenced by special courts numerous times and also spent several years in exile in France and Switzerland. In 1935 he was taken on by the Breda company.

In March 1943 he took part in the first large-scale strike of factories in Sesto San Giovanni, which spread in the days that followed to the factories of Milan and the Brianza region.

With the armistice of 8 September 1943, the anti-Fascist resistance became a partisan struggle against Nazi fascism, and in northern Italy, the conflict between the factories and the dictatorship escalated. Libero was among the organisers of the general strike of March 1944, which lasted a good eight days and resulted in the arrest and deportation of hundreds of workers.

On the night of 12 March, he was arrested at home in front of his wife and their eight-year-old son and was taken to the police station in Milan before being transferred to the barracks at Bergamo. On 17 March he was deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp, where he arrived three days later. He then spent time in the subcamps at Gusen, Schwechat and Hinterbrühl.

He died on 13 April 1945 during the death march from Hinterbrühl to Mauthausen of hunger, exhaustion and beatings. The prisoners were forced to march on foot to where only death and the crematoria awaited them, so as to leave no trace for the advancing Allies.

In 1974 the city of Sesto San Giovanni awarded him the gold medal ‘for the highest service in the defence of liberty and paying the greatest price there is.’

Dimitri Baldanza

 

ANED, Sesto San Giovanni section

 

Translation into English: Joanna White

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