The cemetery of Tresanti

The small and secluded cemetery of Tresanti holds within its walls an important memory
for the profound identity of this small community. Upon entering, on the opposite side
stand three chapels that develop orthogonally to the larger dimension of the walled
enclosure: the one on the left houses, among others, the remains of Bruno Zanoboni, a
young man of 20 years, born and raised in Tresanti and who died on August 9, 1940, at
the hospital in Turin.
What had happened to this young man? Let's hear the words of Andrea Pestelli, who in a
recent book immortalized his memory: On August 9, 1940, Bruno Zanoboni died of illness
at the hospital in Turin, belonging to the 4th Regiment of Engineers (Telegraphers); in the
same unit also served another Montespertolese (Ettore Borelli, born in 1919) who testified
to Pestelli his memory of his friend: "At the declaration of war against France, we were in
Peschiera sul Garda. The order came to leave for the front, and on June 20 we arrived in
the Alps at Bardonecchia, still wearing the same summer clothing we had on Lake Garda.
We pitched our tents in a meadow at almost 1500 meters altitude and stayed there until
August 15; the nights were cold, we had no heavy blankets, and the tents absolutely did
not keep out the rain. Zanoboni fell ill and was transferred to the hospital in Turin. Only
later did I learn of his death. He was the son of the priest's farmer in Tresanti."
Reading these few lines, one cannot help but think of the rhetoric of the fascist regime that
sent hundreds of thousands of young peasants, completely unprepared, to slaughter, not
only lacking in weapons but also in suitable clothing. Bruno, one can believe, who probably
had never seen in his young life the mountains, the Northern Italy, and Lake Garda, who
had nothing against the French he was asked to kill, didn't even reach the point of fighting
because he died first, of cold. The regime, which boasted to the four winds the necessity of
war where it would find its imperial glory alongside Nazism and Germany, that regime
couldn't even provide Bruno and Ettore with clothing and a tent suitable for the mountain
climate. And so Bruno found death there, alone and far from his beloved family. Knowing
all this, today, looking at the photo of that young farmer, whose remains rest alongside
those of his father Giuseppe, one cannot help but feel an infinite pity and sadness.