Fabbrica Innocenti

Core place of the strikes of 1943 and 1944 and one of the most active centers of the Resistance in Milan.

This is how Pietro Secchia and Enzo Nizza’s Enciclopedia dell’antifascismo e della Resistenza describe the place: «The industrial company Innocenti was founded by the engineer Ferdinando Innocenti for the production of tube mills; in the years before the Second World War, the factory was equipped for arms production and bullets, in particular.

The passage of the factory to war production brought a progressive increase in manpower as well: the workers, who were originally about one thousand, reached the number of six thousands in 1939-1940. 70% were women who, despite being forced to carry out heavy duties, were paid significantly less than men. But since men’s wage was itself already low, the factory was in a state of permanent dissatisfaction and tension, offering organized antifascist groups a fertile soil for their political and unionist action».
In March 1943, the workers in the big factories of the North went on strike “for peace and for bread”. «In March 1943, in Milan, in the wake of what was already happening in Turin, “L’Unità” spread the word of the strike, which found a fertile soil at Innocenti. On 24th March, the workers went on strike and most of their demands were accepted».
«The German occupation following the armistice of 8th September 1943, delivered a heavy blow to the political organization of the factory. Many executives were forced to leave the factory to escape capture. With new executive, over the span of a handful of months, the Innocenti became one of the most active centers in the fight for the Liberation of Milan: the first SAPs were formed there, and they later converged in the 194th Brigata Garibaldi.».

In December, the protests at Innocenti resumed and lasted from 13th to 17th December 1943.

«That winter, like all big factories, an illegal Resistance group was being formed at Innocenti, a group which would carry out consistent acts of sabotage in January and February 1944».

The workers would continue with their acts of sabotage and preparation of the big strikes of March 1944. On 1st March 1944, at 10 am, the strike at the Innocenti factory in Lambrate began. The consequence of these strikes would be the deportation of 15 workers to Mauthausen.

In a recorded interview of 1992 by Giuseppe Valota, Chairman of the ANED in Sesto San Giovanni, Adamo Sordini, worker at Innocenti, tells his story «We were arrested in the evening of 10th March 1944 and they immediately brought us to San Vittore, where we stayed for five days. Then, they took us to Bergamo, in the prison Sant’Agata in Bergamo Alta. They were full. They talked with each other for a while and then brought us down to Città Bassa, at the 68th Infantry Barracks, in Borgo Santa Caterina. They gathered all people from Lombardy, Liguria and Piedmont. There were about 650-660 of us. On 17th March we departed from Bergamo at 1.30pm, paraded around the streets of the city with our relatives and other people surrounding us and reached Mauthausen from the train station on 20th March 1944».
The twelve workers of Innocenti who never came back are commemorated with a plate at the Camera del Lavoro in Lambrate, in via Conte Rosso 30, a plate inside the INNSE factory in via Rubattino and a memorial stone in piazza Vigili del Fuoco.

Roberto Cenati