Brussels – “I used to work two kilometres underground.” Valentino Di Pietro is from Abruzzo, is ninety years old and describes himself as one of the “last Italian miners” in Belgium. On Saturday 8 August, the 70th anniversary of the Marcinelle tragedy (Belgium) will be commemorated – the mining disaster in 1956 that claimed the lives of 262 miners of 12 different nationalities, including 136 Italians. As every year, an official ceremony will be held at the Bois du Cazier mine—which has since become a museum—to commemorate the victims. Italian authorities, the Italian Consulate and Embassy in Belgium, and a number of trade unions will also be in attendance. In 1956, Di Pietro was not present at Marcinelle, as he was working in a nearby mine. However, he is well aware of the conditions of such an extremely gruelling job.
The man says he left at the age of twenty because his region, Abruzzo, “had been completely destroyed by the Germans, who wanted to halt the American advance.” He emphasises that the reason he is one of the last remaining miners is purely a matter of age: the Italians who had arrived in Belgium were already 30 or 35 years old, while he was much younger. As post-war Italy was an extremely poor country, thousands emigrated in search of work. According to Di Pietro, this “was essential for the country’s reconstruction.”
Italian immigration to Belgium
On 23 June 1946, Italy and Belgium signed a bilateral agreement, known as the “man-coal accord”, which stipulated that, in return for sending workers to the Belgian mines, Italy would receive supplies of coal at a reduced price. More specifically, the requirement for Italian labour was set at 50,000 workers, meaning that 2,000 people had to be sent each week, aged 35 or under and in good health. By the end of 1954, the community of Italian workers in Belgium numbered 161,495 units.
In the mines, the difficult working conditions and the lack of adequate safety measures led to a great many accidents and numerous disasters. However, as they were not as tragic as the Marcinelle disaster, they have been forgotten. Most of the sites in Wallonia had old and dilapidated facilities, to the extent that as early as the 1920s there had been discussions about the possible closure of the Bois du Cazier. Rising demand for coal and the arrival of cheap foreign labour prompted industrialists to exploit the facilities to the full, postponing their modernisation and safety upgrades. It was the miners alone who paid the price for this inaction.
Di Pietro recounts that, initially, the Belgians were hostile towards the Italian workers, accusing them of “stealing their livelihood,” even though the Belgians themselves were the first to refuse to work in the mines. He also adds that it was mainly Italians from the South who emigrated, as industrial activities in Northern Italy were already profitable and offered plenty of job opportunities. In the Marcinelle disaster, Abruzzo was the Italian region that lost the most lives. The incident still makes him angry, “because justice has not been done.”
The Marcinelle trial and the importance of remembrance
The trial to establish responsibility for the disaster and the safety failings at the mine began in May 1959 at the Charleroi court. With its first-instance judgement, handed down in October 1959, the court acquitted all the defendants, sparking fierce controversy and disappointment among the victims’ families and the emigrant communities. In 1961, an appeal judgement was handed down, in which the Court partially overturned the acquittal, sentencing the mine manager to a six-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 2,000 Belgian francs (approximately €300 at current rates), while upholding the acquittal of the other defendants.
For this reason, Di Pietro emphasises the importance of keeping the memory of the disaster alive; to this end, he takes part in events and debates, to ensure, above all, that the younger generations, both in Belgium and in Italy, understand this history. The significance of this chapter in Italian and Belgian history has also been recognised by the European institutions.
On 22 July, the European Commission proposed that 8 August be designated as the European Day in memory of the victims of accidents at work and for the protection of workers’ dignity, an initiative to which the European Parliament had given its approval during the plenary session on 21 May.
Despite everything, the former miner is proud of his hard work today, as it has enabled him to build a house in his home village, where he returns every summer.
