The story in ebook format: "Occupation, Liberation, and My Father's Gaze. Colonel Malgeri Relives"

A story that has been kept secret for years and that the public still doesn't know. A story that recounts the intense involvement of the Guardia di Finanza in the phases before and after the Liberation . The story of my father, who wanted to write this book to document everything and that now, finally, the new generations can also read." Vincenzo Malgeri thus re-browses "The occupation of Milan and its liberation," written by his father Alfredo and recently republished in digital format: it has become a "Sormani ebook " thanks to the Milan Library System and the collaboration with "Milan is Memory."

Alfredo Malgeri, a general in the Guardia di Finanza, passed away in 1977. He had been awarded the Guardia di Finanza's Gold Medal of Valor for his activities during the final phase of the Italian Resistance . He wanted to document these activities, retracing them in a book to ensure they would not be forgotten. "I was 13 years old at the time," Vincenzo recounts, "and at first I experienced the war indirectly. When it broke out, I was in Bari; my father was transferred to Milan in 1942. It was the first day of school; I remember the bombings, day and night. The city in flames. To protect us, my father decided to make us leave the city."

As an adult, Vincenzo followed in his father's footsteps, reaching the rank of General of the Finance Police and coordinating major operations, including in Milan. "What my father recounted cannot be found in history books; it's a detailed account of those years," he continues. "After the war, he wanted to collect memories and documents, and in 1947 he published them so that the memory of what had been accomplished would remain." A legacy for young people, schools, and the city.

The new e-book's introduction is entrusted to Mayor Giuseppe Sala, the presentation is by Ferruccio Parri, and is accompanied by a testimony by Leo Valiani. "Eighty years after the Liberation, Milan does not forget," the mayor emphasizes. "Among the highlights of that period is the insurrection of April 25, 1945, and the still too little-remembered figure of Colonel Alfredo Malgeri. Milan owes a great deal to him and his financiers, men seemingly peripheral to the "official" narrative of the Resistance. Because when the city rose up, it was they—with little more than 400 rifles—who liberated the Prefecture, guarded the government buildings, and protected the rebirth of democratic life. They did so with discipline, clarity, but above all, with profound moral conviction."

The new edition produced by the Milan Library System is part of the project "The Time of Peace and Freedom. Eighty Years of Liberation." Librarians are giving a second life in digital form to neglected, forgotten, or little-known books: they have created a veritable series, which grows every year and which, with Malgeri's volume, now comprises 47 ebooks. "We are republishing this book, "The Occupation of Milan and the Liberation," because we believe it is our duty to give voice to a clear and extraordinary testimony," Sala concludes. "It is not just a military account: it is a human, civil, and political document. A narrative from within a key part of the Milanese Resistance, capable of demonstrating the breadth and complexity of the insurrection. Remembering today is not only a duty, it is a collective responsibility."

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