Page 71 - Mediterraneo e dintorni - 4-2020

Nicola Sacco Bartolomeo Vanzetti

mentendo sulla loro appartenenza anarchica, sulle
armi che portavano, sul perché si trovassero a
Bridgewater e negarono di conoscere qualcuno di
nome Buda. Ma davvero erano stati arrestati perché
anarchici? La risposta è no, ed è doppiamente
beffarda. Innanzi tutto lo scambio di persona. Quel
5 maggio, infatti, la sera del loro arresto, il capo
della Polizia di Bridgewater Michael Stewart aveva
teso una trappola a Mario Buda, ritenendolo uno
dei cinque banditi che, il 15 aprile 1920, avevano
compiuto, nella vicina cittadina di Braintree, una
rapina a mano armata conclusasi con l’uccisione
di un portavalori e della sua guardia del corpo e
un bottino di circa sedicimila dollari. Deciso ad
arrestarlo, arrivò tardi sul luogo dove si erano
incontrati i quattro anarchici e chiamò la polizia di
Brockton chiedendo di arrestare due persone sul
pullman proveniente da Bridgewater. Pensava di
incastrare Buda e Orciani e finì invece per arrestare
Sacco e Vanzetti, che neppure conosceva.

Manifestazioni e mobilitazioni internazionali per salvare Sacco e
Vanzetti

saCCo and VanzeTTi, iTaLian very frequent and unprejudiced in the months had been illegally detained in
anarChisM in The UniTed sTaTes US, and indiscriminate arrests were often those offices together with the anarchist
followed by expulsion and repatriation Roberto Elia, from Catanzaro, and had
The anarchists Nicola Sacco and measures. They were anarchists, been subjected to harsh interrogations
Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested mostly Italians, and the attention of that had weakened him in physique and
on May 5, 1920, around ten in the the police of various States of America spirit. The press claimed that, before
evening, on a bus that was taking them and of the Bureau of Investigation was “falling” from the fourteenth floor,
from Bridgewater to Brockton. The two concentrated around their group. Two Salsedo had mentioned the names of
men were armed. They had recently left days earlier - and this was also one his anarchist comrades responsible for
with two of their anarchist companions, of the reasons for their meeting with bomb attacks. For these reasons, that
Mario Buda and Riccardo Orciani, with Buda and Orciani - their partner Andrea evening, on the bus, Sacco and Vanzetti
whom they were organizing how to get Salsedo had smashed to the ground believed they had been stopped for
rid of subversive material. They were flying down from the fourteenth floor of their anarchist militancy and because
very worried because the operations to the Park Row Building, the headquarters they were Italian. Convinced of this,
combat anarchism and all forms of social of the Bureau of Investigation in New with the intent to protect themselves
dissent in the past two years had become York. Andrea, from Pantelleria, for some and their companions, the questions of

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