A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova: Adria's house. Memory of Adria Marzocchi (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In Adria's house there is a place for history, passions for big and 
small things, good food and the many people who have walked down the 
long corridor full of books. ---- If the life of the "dad" (Tuscan 
style) Umberto Marzocchi has been described in detail in a beautiful 
book - "Senza frontiere", by Giorgio Sacchetti, published in 2005 - 
perhaps not everyone knows that he came to live in Savona in the summer 
of 1920, recovering from the tragic events of Sarzana in July of that 
year. In fact, his fiancée, the young and beautiful Elvira Angella, the 
love of his life, had been living in this city for some years. The two 
married in the Town Hall of Savona on April 4, 1922, then moving to live 
with her parents in an apartment on Via Guidobono.

In addition to love, Umberto and Elvira shared an ideal, lived in a 
strong, intense way, with conviction and determination. But the times 
were bitter and darkened by the dark winds of reaction. Thus, when at 
the beginning of August 1922 the Blackshirts occupied the Town Hall, 
where Umberto had found work as a clerk at the municipal census offices, 
he and Elvira were forced to leave Savona and find refuge in France, to 
avoid the abuses and violence committed by the fascists.

Adria, their firstborn, was born on January 1, 1923 in Savona; in that 
same city, three and a half years later, on July 20, 1926, their second 
daughter, Marisa, was born. They were born in Savona because Elvira 
strongly desired that both their daughters be born welcomed by the arms 
of her sisters and brothers.

They went to live in Lille, in the North of France, where they opened a 
bookstore, then moved to Paris.

In the years that followed, Adria would always remember in great detail 
the life of those years, spent in a foreign land, in an adventurous and 
turbulent way, always on the edge of the unforeseen event that could 
have led her and her parents to ruin: she would never forget the many 
false names, always different, adopted so as not to be identified by the 
police, the many episodes worthy of the pages of a novel that had 
characterized her youth as well as the trips to the countryside with the 
anarchists and the socialist exiles, the emotion felt when attending a 
theatrical performance for the first time in Paris (a passion, this, 
that would accompany her throughout her existence), the many matinees at 
the cinema with her sister Marisa and her cousin Dado.

They were very critical periods, but also beautiful moments, as Adria 
loved to remember.

Then the years had flown by, quickly, with her heart in her throat. She 
remembered well what she had felt in her heart when her father Umberto, 
in 1936, left for Spain to give his fundamental contribution to the 
Spanish revolutionary front, in the fight that was being fought in that 
land against Francoism. Then came the restrictive turn of French 
immigration policy, starting in 1938, which had forced anti-fascist 
exiles to flee or enlist in the Foreign Legion. Very hard, unspeakable 
years of waiting, of suffering, in which Evil seemed to be on the verge 
of triumphing, inexorably.

Among those who, in that June of 1940, left Paris, at whose gates the 
Nazi troops were now, there were also three of them: Elvira, Adria and 
Marisa. They would travel more than 300 km on foot. under the bombings, 
tormented by the constant anxiety of being exposed to possible acts of 
violence, as women, then aged 40, 17 and 14, by some brute. This 
terrible experience would mark them deeply, forever. So much so that, in 
the following years, remembering the war period, Adria would come to say 
that she had been more afraid of men than of bombs.

They lived another year and a half in France, in the terrible period of 
the German occupation, without resources and with a thousand 
difficulties. Then, in the end, they were sent back to Italy. At the 
border the Italians asked them if they were of Aryan race. Returning to 
their Savona, in February 1941, in the midst of the conflict, Elvira, 
together with her daughters, went to live for a short time with her 
father Pietro and the family of her sister Gemma (who had previously 
returned from Italy) in the small apartment in via Vaccioli n. 8 interno 
2 of the Angella: a large family of libertarians with the exception of 
Carlo, an intransigent communist. Then, in April 1942, Elvira Angella 
moved to La Spezia, going to stay with her mother-in-law Adria Mainardi 
Passerotti.

Adria, now twenty years old, had embraced her father's ideas without 
hesitation, making them her own. And she was able to explain them simply 
to those close to her, even when she was living as a displaced person in 
Corniglia.  During that period, to go to work in La Spezia and to reach 
her workplace at the public education of the Municipality, she who had 
attended school in France, walked 20 km., if she couldn't get on a 
train. Then, when she returned home, she fainted from exhaustion.

After the Liberation, Adria, Marisa and their mother Elvira returned to 
Savona. They were the first months of rebirth, everything seemed more 
beautiful, they were starting to live again. Then, finally, in November 
1945, after 23 years of exile, Umberto Marzocchi returned to Savona, 
reuniting with his wife Elvira and his daughters Adria and Marisa. 
Immediately after, all four, finally reunited, managed to get permission 
to go and live in a council house in Piazza Bologna.

Umberto Marzocchi immediately began to travel around Italy, 
participating in rallies and taking part in the congresses and 
conferences of Italian anarchists.

In the meantime, in 1953, Adria married Stelio Casati, a true "myth" for 
the children who frequented their house at the time: Stelio, whom she 
had met at a party organized by the Republicans and who had been a 
prisoner in Germany for not wanting to join the Italian Social Republic 
when he was arrested as a soldier on September 12, 1943. After the 
wedding, the two went to live with her parents in Piazza Bologna, later 
moving to live in the same building on Via Privata Istria where Marisa 
and her husband Lino Pinetto lived, on the top floor, above them.

Entering the house where Adria spent the following years of her life 
from then on is exciting. As soon as you enter that apartment on Via 
Privata Istria 6 interno 7 you are greeted by a bookcase overflowing 
with books, from floor to ceiling. Leafing through the pages of those 
texts can give you an idea of the depth of culture and humanity that 
characterized Adria Marzocchi's existence. In fact, we do not only find 
books that deal with political topics, centered on anarchist and 
libertarian ideals, but also history and art texts, monographs on 
Puccini as well as novels and anthologies of short stories by the 
greatest authors of the last two centuries. On the left there is still 
what for everyone in the family is still the room of grandfather 
Umberto, who in the meantime had become the anarchist Marzocchi, where 
he spent his time studying and writing articles that he would then read 
to Adria, sitting at the kitchen table.

Adria had inherited the place of Elvira, who died prematurely in 1969. 
With a hint of self-irony, Umberto Marzocchi's first-born daughter loved 
to say of herself: "I'm a housewife, but in the meantime I correct dad's 
proofs". He listened to her and listened to her.

And she would have taken up her baton in the 1980s, occasionally making 
surprise appearances at meetings of the young "Pietro Gori" group, 
suddenly appearing on the threshold of the room to "have her say," with 
strength, vigor, and determination, then returning to her business. Yes: 
Adria considered herself free rather than militant...

Well, this house on Via Privata Istria is always on the move, and will 
always be. Her companions and friends, over the years, have always been 
welcomed as she wished: they arrived, ate, slept on the sofa, talked, 
because with Adria it was impossible not to talk (even if there were 
some who resisted, like Marco from Livorno). Her desire was always the 
same: to know people's lives, to discover who they were. Her gift, after 
all, was to make others feel understood, loved, creating relationships 
of empathy, building bridges of humanity. Many have returned to his 
house for years: after having entered it for the first time as boys, 
they then brought their companions and children, like Didier with Cecile 
and his children Carol and Florian or Michele with Nora and Giada.

Everything in that house is filled with memories and life, life lived 
intensely. In every corner, on every wall there are photographs of the 
little ones who have arrived over the years (there is Zoe, Claudio 
Venza's daughter, Martina appears, Bruno and Elpidia's daughter, there 
are Monica's children, Vincenzo and Antonella's children, there is 
Alessandro, the son of the granddaughter Diddi, Giacomo, Mattia and 
Veronica, Giordano and Laura's children appear laughing, and many, many 
others). Attached to the wall, with scotch tape or with punaises, the 
colored pins, are the postcards of the many trips made, the posters of 
the exhibitions visited or of the black and white films that have made 
the history of cinema and that had moved Adria. The Christmas gift bows 
gain their value and are tied everywhere, even on the toilet flush. A 
riot of colors.

In recent years, even though she could still move around easily, Adria's 
life took place mainly on the bed in her bedroom. Here too, nothing is 
missing: books, magazines and newspapers, which she managed to read, 
interested and in love as she was with everything, almost until the end 
of her 102 years of life. There is also the make-up bag, because for 
Adria beauty has always been a precious element, fundamental in her 
existence. Her hair, with the passing of time, has become like the 
ripples of the September sea on windy days. White hair that her faithful 
hairdresser Cristina came to take care of at home. There is no shortage 
of jewelry, sweets and the television, thanks to which, almost until the 
end, she followed the political debates, which she always commented with 
extraordinary acumen, the programs on the arts, the monographs on the 
various characters or her favorite soap operas, which she watched with 
her sister Marisa lying on the bed next to her.

Adria has always had faith in young people and loved talking and 
discussing with them. She talked to them about everything, not just Anarchy.

In recent times she was very worried about the victory of the Right. She 
said: «The fascists are back, they will stay another twenty years... I 
don't want to leave now, with them in power». She couldn't believe that 
everything had started again, like then.

When your cycle ended, Adria, there was a large and varied humanity to 
greet you in front of the headquarters of the anarchist group "Pietro 
Gori"; of the young people who grew up with your panzanelle and your 
fried potatoes, no one was missing, in body or spirit.

For many of us, your home was a nest. You did so much, you gave so much. 
A large part of you continues today, in your absence, in your presence, 
thanks to Tiziana.

Anarchist group "Pietro Gori" - FAI Savona

https://umanitanova.org/la-casa-di-adria-ricordo-di-adria-marzocchi/
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