“Auschwitz” and liberation from Nazi-Fascism: this is how Guccini reminded us of who we are and the reason for a united Europe

Brussels – Guccini had never set foot in the European Union. Neither in person nor in his songs. There are no accounts of him visiting the EU institutions, nor are there any lyrics that touch on the subject of integration. By choice, presumably, the singer-songwriter has always avoided the subject. At least not directly. Throughout his long artistic career, filled with concerts and books, Guccini has tackled other themes, one of which has been history—the history of humankind, the very same humankind that, from the ashes of history, has managed to build a new and contrasting one, founded on reconciliation and cooperation. The European Union, in its project to integrate and overcome divisions between peoples, is also a legacy of Auschwitz—that dark chapter in the human saga to which Guccini dedicated one of his most intense and, even today, most representative songs.

Auschwitz, the place where even “God is dead”, as he himself sang, represented a point of no return, but at the same time a starting point for a new beginning. The Nazi extermination camp, a symbol of the Second World War and of human folly, stands as proof that yes, “the European Union is no accident of history”, as David Sassoli, President of the European Parliament, was keen to emphasise and, in keeping with the EU’s mission of reconciliation, wanted Liliana Segre in the chamber, as a witness to Auschwitz—one of the very few. For few ever returned from that camp. 

Guccini never directly celebrated Europe as the European Union. He approached Europe in this sense from a distance, implicitly and indirectly. He has depicted it through the events of an Italy divided and torn apart by the war within the war—that civil war born of a Rome-Berlin axis not rejected by everyone. He has sung its praises by celebrating, with “Quel giorno di aprile” (That Day in April, the 21st of April 1945, ed.), the liberation of “his” Bologna from the occupation by Nazi-Fascist troops, marking a rebirth that ultimately became a rebirth for everyone—at different times, but driven by the same desire for Europe. 

Guccini sang of a different Europe—one that is more relevant and contemporary—in his song “Primavera di Praga” (The Prague Spring), a scathing critique of the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and a veritable hymn to freedom and to a Europe free from oppression and oppressors. Ultimately, a clear manifesto emerges from Guccini’s thinking, one built on memory and criticism, but above all on democracy and values, regarded as absolute. An anti-Soviet, he did not hesitate to take an anti-American stance in the face of the Silvia Baraldini affair. A song that today’s weak European leaders, who bow to the overbearing Trump, should listen to.