The educational project at “Dante Alighieri” school of Olgiate Olona
In order to provide continuity and sightedness to the memory of June 26, 1959, an educational project has been started in 2010 thanks to the intuition of Alberto Colombo supported by Beato Contardo Ferrini Institute and by the Municipality of Olgiate Olona. The project is addressed to the students in the eighth-grade of Dante Alighieri school and consists of: a multimedia conversation in the classroom about the historical fact and the commemorative events, dialog with the students, screening of the video of song Olgiate Olona, 26 Giugno 1959 composed by Nicola Puddu; production of a work written in Italian language follows. The works in poetry and prose are received anonymous; then they are selected and judged by a jury outside the school; the most deserving works - those which best reflect the historical fact and the commemorative events - are rewarded during the commemoration of June the 26. Because of their exceptional nature, some works received a Special award offered personally by Alberto Colombo with the authorization of Olgiate Olona mayor.
school year:
2023/24 | 2022/23 | 2021/22 | 2020/21 | 2019/20 | 2018/19 | 2017/18 | 2016/17
2015/16 | 2014/15 | 2013/14 | 2012/13 | 2011/12 | 2010/11 | 2009/10
Special award 2024
Nei cuori della gente by Giorgia Tracanzan
The poem - written in verses embellished with refined rhyme - summarizes in a skilful swing of words and emotions the memory of June 26, 1959, embodied by the dialogue with the seventy immortal lives and with oneself.
Nei cuori della gente
(in the hearts of people)
Sitting on the steps of the house
I see that lightning
killer of lives.
Dreams, goals and promises torn away,
who knows if the joy will return.
It’s not just something you lose,
it’s not being able to see you in the beautiful green fields anymore.
The past cannot return,
but we can remember.
You will live forever inside people’s hearts,
so each of us will come out a winner.
Tragedy leaves gaps that are difficult to fill,
but thanks to memory our lives can improve.
Special award 2023
Settanta vite perse in un secondo by Samuele De Paola
With appropriately chosen phrases and words, with deep meaning and embellished by rhyme, he captured and crystallized both the essence of the plane crash and each of its protagonists, and the feeling and commitment of those who exercise and perpetuate the memory of June 26, 1959, taking care of the seventy immortal lives and their families.
Settanta vite perse in un secondo
(seventy lives lost in one second)
Seventy lives lost in one second
but each of them contained a world.
Seventy lives torn from a body,
whose road was cut short by fatality.
But evil was not only for seventy lives,
for other lives the suffering was great
and those families still remember
the people dead in a second.
It’s not just for them to remember
the dead lives that didn’t want to go;
ours too is the duty to celebrate
those seventy souls that we can still love.
Special award 2016
Ali bianche by Matilda Marchetta
A poem made of sixty words captures like in a snapshot the fleeting moment in which the spirits of two immortal lives on June 26, 1959, are freed from their mortal body, and continue their life in a new embrace and in a new dimension.
Ali bianche
(white wings)
I couldn’t see anything,
just smoke.
I heard some screams,
then nothing,
I was transported back to heaven
almost floating.
I ran to my mother.
She was... just arrived, her too.
We hugged each other.
Then we looked down.
Still smoke, even screams.
I could see something of me...
tangled in the metal sheets.
I looked away.
Then I took her hand,
my mother.
And we flew away,
by flapping our white wings.
Special award 2014
Cara mamma sono dentro di te... by Payel Sarker
This is the very first one among the eighth grade students who participated in the educational project inspired by the June 26, 1959 so far, who identified himself with the smallest and most defenseless of the seventy immortal lives, the unborn child, and who gave him the soul and the voice through a dialogue with his mother summarized in ten sentences with a poignant and synthetic content: little over one hundred words.
Cara mamma sono dentro di te...
(dear mom I’m inside you...)
Dear mom, I’m inside you, close to your heart, I’m part of your breath. Mom, you have given me so much love and affection in these months. Even now with your hands caressing me I feel your protection. I can’t see you, but I know that your face is serene. And a smile is on your lips as a light of hope in this place where everyone screams, complains, cries... I don’t know what it’s happening, but I feel safe next to you, I will follow you anywhere you will go. What a strange silence, what a peace! Mom, I finally see you, and I see many other happy and shining people around. «Where are we mom?». «In paradise, my little child».
Special award 2011
Certo se l’avessi saputo! by Chiara Segato
(The author) was able to analyze the value of memory and solidarity linked to the plane crash of June 26, 1959 not only with original approach - identifying himself with one of the seventy victims -, but also with good writing skills which articulated the thoughts, used the right words and even proposed synthetic and effective ‘cameos’ of meditation. I have been impressed by the originality and depth of this work, because I know how hard is to engage oneself in the tragedy of June 26, 1959, in terms of literary and psychological efforts.
Certo se l’avessi saputo!
(sure, if I had known!)
Sure, if I had known! I wouldn’t have boarded... I was young and I wanted to live. I had many plans and I was traveling to carry them out. I had faith in progress, in technology, in the airplane. Destiny ambushed me instead. Want to know what it feels like? A mixture of disbelief and astonishment, fear and resignation. Suddenly I saw all the most important people in flashbacks, fleeting images which in a few seconds have revived in me memories, joys and sorrows. A moment later I was dead. I saw from above the flames rising from a place I did not know. So my youth and my dreams burned together with the airplane. Those who knew me are reaching me one by one. One day I heard voices evoking the accident, my name was among the list of passengers on that flight. The disbelief to be dead. Here there are no dead or alive, time is a dimension that no longer exists. Really more than fifty years have passed? Is there still anyone among those who are alive who remembers that day, the flames that came down from the sky and then rose high from the bottom of the valley? If I had died in my bed I would not have been so much popular. As well as my traveling companions, “the 70 immortal lives”. There is no pain here, so if you have to remember, do it with serenity. It had to go this way, it was written. It was only the clamor of the event that made us particular. Dying is as natural as growing, you know. My ashes are back to the cycle of life since a long time, you are not remembering a death only, but a rebirth. Thanks to you today I have a name and a surname again, a face, a story. I liked that you called us “the 70 immortal lives” and above all I am happy that the celebration of the disaster was not only a moment of rightful sadness and emotion by all the participants, but also an occasion for “alive” and actual solidarity.