The junior high school of the Salesian Institute of Bologna
And so came the last days of April 1945.
With my family, we returned from Gaggio to Bologna. In the Bolognina neighborhood, there were more destroyed or damaged buildings than intact ones.
The proximity to the train station was crucial. In the houses of the railway workers, where we lived, the missing window panes were replaced with oiled paper sheets.
Even the Church of the Sacred Heart and the Salesian Institute suffered numerous damages.
In early October 1945, some schools reopened, including the Salesian Junior High School.
It was a cold October. We, the kids, on the first day of school, showed up with little boots, gloves, scarves, and other heavy clothing.
After a few days in October 1945, already into the school year, on a cold morning, a long line of seven or eight-year-old kids arrived, I believe from the center-south of Italy.
They were lined up under the covered walkway of the inner courtyard. While we were waiting to enter the classroom, we noticed that they were dressed in short-sleeved colorful cotton shirts, shorts, and no socks. Instead of shoes, they had summer sandals. They were suffering from the cold.
The Salesian priests welcomed them with great generosity, made them wear heavy woolen clothes. Then the kids went into the refectory. They were hungry, they were war orphans.
It was their first contact with the "Salesian Caritas" of Bologna.
I was enrolled in the third year of junior high. It was a class of over thirty or thirty-five boys.
The first year was attended by all of us in Bologna for only a few months, as air raids were almost daily.
The second year saw me with the Friars of Porretta, during the "front".
When the Salesian Priests of Bologna welcomed us, we were all terribly "ignorant". It took their patience and skills to provide us with a valuable education.
In the junior high school diploma examination of June 1946, I was among the 14 students who passed.
Then, after about 40 years or so, a large group of former students, now adults, from the center-south of Italy, appeared at the Salesian Institute of Bologna, thanking the priests for the affection they received when they were welcomed and helped as young children.
THE "THOUGHT" OF DON BOSCO, THE HOLY FATHER OF YOUTH, HAD BEEN REALIZED.
From the memory of a Former Student of the Salesian Junior High School of the year 1945/1946