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The mazzieri brutally assaulted Vincenzo Nazzaro. Those who witnessed the assault remembered that his face had been transformed from that of a handsome man to the face of the biblical Ecce Homo. Vincenzo Nazzaro survived the brutal attack, and religious people who knew him attributed his survival to divine intervention by the statue of the Holy Trinity, venerated in the town’s monumental church.
The Nazzaro family pursued the indictment and prosecution of the mazzieri, who were found guilty of criminal association with intent to commit murder (associazione a delinquere a scopo di delitto) and sentenced to several years in jail. However, in the aftermath of the Fascist March on Rome (October 1922) and the appointment of Benito Mussolini as prime minister of the Italian government, Il Duce granted an amnesty and set the jailed criminals free.
Vincenzo Nazzaro married Giovanna Crispo in 1926. (The Crispo family had emigrated to the United States in 1901.) In the aftermath of the assault, the Nazzaro family lived under constant threat. Fascists considered them sovversivi (subversives) and kept them under constant control. Often threatened, my father was forced to appear at the Dopolavoro, the center where Fascists convened after work. From 1940 to 1956, my father taught at the local Scuola Statale di Avviamento Professionale Industriale “Carlo Poerio.”
During WWII, he was subjected to more severe control and threatened with dismissal from his teaching position. It was a difficult period for the entire family. After receiving tenured professorship at the school, he retired from active teaching in 1956 and emigrated to the United States in 1957.
My own educational experience at the local high school influenced the second stage of the present work. Students received a good dose of weekly Fascist indoctrination there. We learned “Mussolini ha sempre ragione” (“Mussolini is always right”); “Credere, Obbedire e Combattere” (“Believe, Obey and Fight”); and “Il Mito e’ Fede, e’ Passione. Non e’ necessario che sia una Realta’” (“The Myth is Faith, is Passion.