One of the great things of working with veterans and their families is hearing stories that don’t make it into textbooks. For those of us who care about history, these first-hand and second-hand memories present both a challenge and an opportunity. How do we preserve these stories of World War II as their tellers begin to pass away.
Two Italian scholars, Dr Gianluca Cinelli and Dr Patrizia Piredda, have wrestled with these questions for years. They launched Close Encounters in War Journal, and their expertise in narrative, ethics and oral history inspired MemoGen, a research and oral‑history project that invites men and women born into Italian families between the 1960s and the 1980s to reflect on WWII and its aftermath.
Recently they launched a new phase, Memo‑AmIt, that reaches across the Atlantic to Italian Americans born between 1965 and 1985. The project’s goal is simple: to collect, preserve and study memories of a war that still shapes identity, ethics and daily habits for Italians and their descendants, even those born decades after the conflict.
To appreciate why projects like MemoGen and Memo‑AmIt matter, it helps to recall Italy’s wartime experience. Benito Mussolini drew Italy into the Axis war in 1940. By July 1943 the Fascist regime was crumbling. Allied troops landed in Sicily on July 10, 1943 (Operation Husky), and the invasion “jarred” the Italian government. Mussolini was deposed, and a pro-Allies provisional government came to power under Marshal Pietro Badoglio.
But the war in Italy was just beginning. The Germans fought for almost every inch of the Italian mainland, creating a bloody slog for the Allies. Even after the liberation of Rome in June 1944, the fighting continued until German forces in Italy finally surrender in May 1945.
Within this military campaign, Italy endured a brutal civil war, a war-within-a-war. Anti‑fascist partisans fought German occupiers and Mussolini’s puppet Italian Social Republic. The German surrender brought victory for the Royalist government and the Resistance, execution for Mussolini and his cadre.
Italy’s wartime legacy is complex. For decades, the nation emphasized the heroism of the Resistance and downplayed its role as an aggressor. The stories of everyday Italians—of rationing, bombings, collaboration and moral dilemma—were often confined to private family memories. Competing narratives about fascism, resistance and victimhood have made the collective memory of the war a battleground. The need to preserve nuanced personal accounts has never been more urgent.
MemoGen was founded in 2024 by Dr Cinelli and Dr Piredda in collaboration with the Centro Studi Sereno Regis and the Archivio Ligure della Scrittura Popolare
Cinelli, a scholar of war narratives and the ethics of violence, and Piredda, an expert on language and ethics, designed the project as a dialogue. The method is Socratic. It’s give-and-take between the interviewers and the interviewed. Participants are not simply subjects. They are partners in a conversation.
This approach recognizes that members of the so‑called “third generation” (born in the 1960s–80s) are often the last to have heard first‑hand wartime stories from grandparents. MemoGen’s founders emphasize that this inheritance is “a precious cultural and educational legacy… worth being valued and preserved”
Interviewees begin by recounting the tales they heard as children—stories of hunger, air‑raid shelters, deportations, resourcefulness and survival. They discuss how those stories influenced their attitudes toward food, frugality and gratitude.
They then examine how their understanding of the war evolved through books, films and visits to memorial sites
Finally, the dialogue moves to the present, asking what “resistance” means in an age of globalization and digital technology, threats that erode civic conscience and make societies vulnerable to manipulation.
MemoGen hopes to create a digital archive of approximately 200 video interviews. Volunteers across Italy and abroad have been invited to share their memories. The collected interviews are being preserved in the Archivio Ligure and later analysed by researchers in oral history, cultural studies, philosophy of language, anthropology and cognitive studies.
In 2025, the project expanded across the Atlantic to focus on Italian Americans born between 1965 and 1985. This US-centered phase aims to understand how WWII has shaped the identity and self‑perception of Italian Americans, how wartime narratives circulate within families and communities, and how these narratives have influenced American perceptions of Italy.
Memo‑AmIt acknowledges that Italian American history intersects with broader American military history. Italian American soldiers helped transform the image of Italy in the United States. Some reconnected with ancestral villages while fighting there.
Meanwhile, the involvement of second‑generation Italian Americans in the Vietnam War added layers of complexity to third‑generation perceptions of World War II.
The project invites anyone who identifies as Italian American, was born between the mid‑1960s and mid‑1980s, and wishes to share family stories to participate. Interviews are conducted over Zoom, in English or Italian, and last about 60 minutes.
Recordings will be housed at the University of Genoa and will be accessible for research purposes only. Reproduction and broadcast are not permitted.
According to the project description, Memo‑AmIt will explore themes including:
- Grandparents’ legacy and moral education, particularly how wartime values such as frugality, resilience and solidarity have been transmitted
- Immigration and integration, examining how family migration stories intersect with war memories
- Multiculturalism and ethical values, looking at Italian American identity within a diverse United States
- Education, propaganda and fake news, probing how participants learned about World War II and how misinformation shapes historical understanding
- Perceptions of Italy and the legacy of other American wars, including Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and even the attacks of September 11, 2001
- Freedom and democracy as bridge concepts that link the past to the present
Memo‑AmIt is not just an academic venture. It is an invitation to Italian Americans to reflect on their family stories and discover how those memories influence their lives today.
For Italian Americans whose parents and grandparents seldom discussed the war, Memo‑AmIt offers a framework to ask questions and record answers before memories vanish. The interviews will form an archive that will help scholars understand Italian‑American relations from 1945 to the present day.
Visit the Memo‑AmIt page on the MemoGen website or contact Dr Gianluca Cinelli directly (giancin77@yahoo.it) to arrange an interview
