Primavalle stake, Meloni: “They were the years of bad teachers”

“On 16 April fifty years ago, Italy and Rome experienced one of the darkest pages in national history”. As Giorgia Meloni in a message sent to the president of the Fratelli Mattei Association, Giampaolo Matteion the occasion of the commemoration ceremony of the 50th anniversary of the massacre of Springvalley. On the night between 15 and 16 April 1973, an arson attack started in a building in Primavalle in Rome by some left-wing extremists led to the death of Virgil and Stefano Matteiaged 22 and 8, children of Mario Matteilocal secretary of the Italian Social Movement.

“What we can do today is to keep alive the memory of what happened, to avoid the danger of relapses and to lead Italy and our people towards a full and true national peace”, explains the Prime Minister. Those “were the years in which the political adversary was an enemy to be brought down, they were the years of bad teachers always ready to justify even the most horrendous of crimes or to construct false truths to cover up those responsible, they were the years of opposing factions and mutual delegitimization”.

The president of the Senate also intervenes Ignatius LaRussa: “For Virgilio and Stefano, they asked for justice and not revenge but the killers, unfortunately, still today have never paid for what was one of the most heinous and dramatic political crimes of the seventies. I would like to renew my sincere appreciation for the words expressed in the Chamber by Senator Verini as well as for the gesture of Undersecretary Paola Frassinetti who in Milan paid homage to the plaque in memory of Iaio Tinelli.These are words and gestures that demonstrate that political forces can find a common ground of remembrance so that violence and hate no longer dwells in our nation”.

During the ceremony this morning Antonella Matteisister of the victims, used very harsh words: “I can’t make peace with people who have never apologized. At nine years old they destroyed my life, how can you forget? Italian justice was what it was. They protected them. They helped them. They kept them. Franca Rame with her ‘Red Rescue’, Daro Fo, Moravia toasted in the house by the sea. How do you think I should feel? Do you want to know the truth? I can’t make peace with who never apologized”.

What happened that day

It is 3.20 on a Monday when in the Roman district, in via Bernardo di Bibbiena number 33, lot 15, staircase D, third floor, a group of young people from Potere Operaio leaves a petrol can with a homemade primer in front of the door of an apartment . They activate the fuse and run away. A few seconds and then the explosion, very powerful.

The door is engulfed in flames, which spread throughout the house within minutes. Mattei, garbage man, has six children. When he notices the fire, he throws himself off a balcony. Silvia and Lucia Mattei save themselves by jumping from the window. His wife Anna has time to pick up the two youngest children, Antonella and Giampaolo, and leave the house. But Virgilio and Stefano Mattei, 22 and 10 years old, are unable to save themselves. They will be burned alive within minutes.