Near my house, there’s a plaque dedicated to Giovanna Dragone.
It reads, “To the martyr of eternal freedom. Giovanna Dragone, housewife, April 30, 1945. The Municipality.”
And then nothing. The sources provide us with no details, stories, or achievements.
Yet it is precisely this silence that speaks.
Giovanna Dragone is not the exception: she is the emblem. Of a widespread, anonymous, collective contribution. Of all those women and men without official biographies who made the Liberation possible.
April 25th is not born of egos. It is not the sum of individual achievements, but of people who chose “we” without expecting recognition.
Today, we live in an age that prizes visibility, the exposed self, flaunted exceptionality. But that plaque under the house speaks to another idea of value: being there, even without being talked about, and more often without being talked about.
Remembering Giovanna Dragone also means this: restoring dignity to the collective dimension. Regaining faith that what we build together matters more than what we demand alone.
The Resistance, perhaps, is also a lesson in moderation: less me, more us.
