On 9 February 2020 the Italian Embassy in Athens organizes a ceremony on the site of the Monument to the fallen of the Aria in front of the island of Patroklos. On the occasion, the first trees of what will be a memory park will be planted. Participants included religious, civil and military representatives from various countries as well as Italy and Greece. We will tell you about the spirit of generosity and brotherhood of Italians and Greeks together, and we will do it from the voice of some of the protagonists. Three men who organized an underwater expedition to the site of the sinking of the Oria to pay tribute to the victims and their families.
Shipwreck of the Oria: the history
It was 11 February 1944 when the steamship Oria sails from Rhodes. The boat - weighing two thousand tons - heads towards Piraeus. Over 4000 Italians are on board, along with ninety Germans and the Norwegian crew, in complex circumstances. In fact, these are Italians who refused to join the Nazis. The steamship sails towards its route and the sky seems metaphorically to put itself in symbiosis with this sad circumstance. Start one storm, the waves crash and slam. The sea waves against the rocks, there is only the rumble of the deaf waters. There is a shipwreck. We do not know what the thoughts of those over 4000 brave men on board the ship may have been, but we do know that their memories will soon be resting on those depths.
To put it with verses from Neruda it would come to mind "Look for what the sea has undone with useless insistence, what it has broken and shaken and abandoned for us". And the 12 February 1944 and the steamer sinks near Cape Sounion. It runs aground in the seabed in front of the island of Patroklos and begins to take on water. The difficult weather conditions make rescues late, more than two days pass. Therefore, only Commander Rasmussen, the chief engineer, thirty-seven Italians, six Germans, a Greek and five crewmen manage to escape. Ten years later, two hundred and fifty bodies will be dragged to the coast and later housed at the Shrine of the Overseas Fallen of Bari. For all the others it will be the joint generosity of Italians and Greeks that will ensure that a memorial place is obtained. A generosity that begins with the collaboration of three men we are telling you about.
Inauguration of a Monument to the fallen of the Oria
On 9 February 2014, a Monument to the fallen of the Oria was inaugurated in Greece. “The memorial was a great idea and validated the great relationships between our people, trying to forget the wounds of the past. It's nice to see him there to remind people of situations and events that are difficult to understand today ”- he tells us Aristotelis Zervoudis. In June 2018 Zervoudis - Greek sub - received the honor of Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy for the decisive contribution to the search for the sinking of the Steamship Oria. “Although during that war Italy and Greece were enemy nations, our people were always similar in behavior and attitudes and shared common interests. I hope we will not face similar situations in the future. Personally, the Aria gave me a 'new' family, I met people who respect each other ”- he continues.
To parry the same thing Michael Ghirardelli - spokesperson for the Network of family members of the missing - who states: “The story of the Rete dell'Oria has shown that there still exists (or perhaps exists today in the globalized world), a strong way of feeling, of communicating, of being together. The thing that strikes the most, in a network that now gathers thousands of people, is precisely the speed and spontaneity with which they are created. true and strong bonds. Maybe even just by communicating at a distance, or seeing each other a few times in a year. It is not rhetoric to say that a family has been created. With a level of affection, confidence, trust that sometimes I don't even have with people I hang out with every day ".
De Donno, Zervoudis and Ghirardelli: towards Patroklos
"Doing a search I found the name of Aristotelis Zervoudis, who had found the wreck of the steamship Oria and I contacted him ", says Luciano DeDonno. Historical researcher, De Donno - Federal instructor FIPSA S.- he organized and participated in numerous diving expeditions. "Zervoudis brought me to the attention of Michele Ghirardelli, an exponent of the Network of relatives of those missing in that shipwreck".
“After obtaining the necessary permits, we went to the place with Aristotelis and there we saw the mess tins, bones, remains, objects of life of those people. We stopped at a depth of 20-25 meters ". And the 2011 when Luciano De Donno joins the research. Together with Michele and Aristotelis it is an experience that they remember as follows: "The relationship with Luciano and Aristotelis was the first indication of an irreplaceable and unique human experience", he begins Ghirardelli.
“We did something out of the ordinary, the difficulties of which seemed insurmountable until a few minutes earlier. Then, everything got stuck in the right place and at the right time. If I think about how much Luciano and Aristotelis have already spent in time, money, energy, sometimes I feel almost guilty. Neither of them has family or institutional involvement. All they have done is for pure generosity", keep going.
Finally the memory of Zervoudis: “I remember our preparations even before Luciano and Michele arrived in Athens, their emotions when we were ready to dive. Because those dives were the first to be done by Italian, I will always remember their desire to make this known history to the Italian people and motivate the government. It has always been very exciting, but the greatest emotion was placing the plate on the bottom to honor the fallen and put the Italian flag on the top".
The sinking of the steamship Oria: a face to the fallen
To date, faces and events from beyond have been reconstructed three hundred missing; to be exact 343 at January 31, 2020. By now the thread of memory it is reconstituted and the important thing is to continue to unravel it. We tell about at least one of them who can symbolically represent them all in this article and we ask a Michele who was his grandfather. “My grandfather was twenty-nine. He had already completed his military service in 1937, but with the worsening of the war situation he was recalled again. He was reinstated in the departments of the Engineers, as a "militarized craftsman", also by virtue of his profession as a carpenter. I think he was a man with thoughts aimed at anything but war. I still wonder how it does to smile in thatonly photo which portrays him, with his wife and daughter, about to leave for the front. Maybe the true heroism is that ".
