Carla Nespolo, President of the partisan association ANPI deceased

5. Oktober 2020

With deep mourning, the Italian partisan federation ANPI and the international federation of the resistance fighters (FIR) must announce the death of Carla Nespolo. She was elected 2017 as the first president of the Italian federation.

Born in 1943 in Novara (Piedmont), she came from a communist family that fought actively in the Italian resistance against the German occupation. Her uncle Amino Pizzorno was vice-commander of the VI Partisan Territory, which operated between Piedmont and Liguria.

She decided to study teaching, which she completed with a university diploma. At the same time, she was politically active for the PCI and became the first communist parliamentarian in Piedmont. Later she was a deputy of the Italian Republic for 2 terms, then — until 1992 — a senator of the Republic. As a trained teacher, she became Vice President of the Education Commission, where she was involved in the reform of high schools, and later of the Environment Commission, where she also campaigned for environmental protection in extra-parliamentary actions.

A central concern were laws on women’s rights. She was a member of the special committee for the law on equality between men and women at work and fought against sexual violence.

With the same commitment as Carla Nespolo had implemented her parliamentary and extra-parliamentary work, she was also ready to take responsibility for the anti-fascist organization, ANPI, to which she had been affiliated for decades. When Prof. Carlo Smuraglia had to resign from his position as president of ANPI in 2017 for health reasons, she did not hesitate to take over this task. Very fast, she also gained international recognition, as it was evident at the conference of ANPI and FIR in December 2018 in preparation for the European election campaign. She supported the international solidarity of the FIR federations, but was also open for new comrades-in-arms from the anti-racist and social movements.

Rightly, ANPI declared in the message of mourning that Carla Nespolo had worked with great wisdom, passion, political and cultural intelligence in the great tradition of authority and active heritage of the values and principles of resistance. Despite her increasing illness, she led and enriched with her contributions the ANPI campaign this year against the change of the anti-fascist constitution with great commitment.

The FIR and the international antifascist movement loses with her a great representative of the ideals of the resistance. She will always remain in our memory.