Malvina Garrone Ronchi Della Rocca

Malvina Garrone Ronchi Della Rocca
Born (1922-05-26)26 May 1922
Bra, Piedmont
Died 30 June 2016(2016-06-30) (aged 94)
Turin
Nationality Italian
Occupation teacher
Known for Italian partisan

Malvina Garrone Ronchi Della Rocca (26 May 1922 – June 30, 2016) was an Italian partisan.

Life

She was born in Bra (Cuneo). Her father was one of the founding members of the Bra Farmers Company, who had paid for his refusal to join the National Fascist Party. She attended the "Govone" of Alba, where she was in the classroom with Beppe Fenoglio and had as teachers Pietro Chiodi and Leonardo Cocito, anti-fascist figures. After high school she enrolled in the Faculty of Arts, in Turin.[1]

Resistance

Following the example of her parents, she joined the Resistance.[2] In the spring of 1944, she joined captain Icilio Ronchi Della Rocca, commander of the partisans of Braidese and started her relay activities, with the nom de guerre of Sonia: she ensures liaison between the partisans and National Liberation Committee of Bra and Turin.[3] She then monitors the movements of Italian Social Republic and German troops, accompanied by the partisan civilian commanders who cooperated with the Resistance. "Sonia" is an important reference point for the fighters of the Twelfth Division Bra.[4] Her activity does not go unnoticed, but she is warned in time by the parish priest of San Rocco of Bra in 1944, and escapes and flees arrest on Christmas Day under a false name, and through the intervention of Michele Pellegrino, the future Archbishop Turin, in an institute of nuns in via della Consolata in Turin; later in the castle of Thaon Revel in Ternavasso. She acts as the governess of the three daughters of the former finance minister of Mussolini. At dawn on 26 April 1945, the day of the Liberation of Bra, Malvina returns home. On 30 March 1946, she married the partisan commander Icilio Ronchi Della Rocca.

The postwar period

She graduated in 1946, and taught literature throughout her working life. Following the war, she moved to Turin in 1953. She was widowed, in 1980, and along with Vanna Ariolfo reprinted Ricordi di un partigiano, the memoir of General Ronchi Della Rocca,[5] which came out in 2009. Malvina and Icilio had three daughters, Simonetta, Daniela and Barbara.

On 16 June 2012, the city of Bra made her an honorary citizen.

She died July 30, 2016, and rests in the family tomb in the cemetery of Bra.

Notes

  1. ↑ "Bra: è morta la staffetta partigiana Malvina della Rocca" (in Italian). 2016-06-30. Retrieved 2016-08-12.
  2. ↑ Her Maria Graglia in 1943 had managed to escape from the soldiers of the Italian train to internment camps
  3. ↑ "Sonia, staffetta partigiana tra i colli di Langa e Roer | Torino la Repubblica.it". torino.repubblica.it. Retrieved 2016-08-12.
  4. ↑ Martini, Elena. "Consegnata la cittadinanza onoraria a Malvina Della Rocca". www.comune.bra.cn.it. Retrieved 2016-08-12.
  5. ↑ "Donne e Uomini della Resistenza: Icilio Ronchi Della Rocca" (in Italian). Retrieved 2016-08-12.

References

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the Italian Wikipedia.
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