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Why is April 25th a holiday in Italy?

April 26, 2021

Disegno patriottico del giorno della liberazione dell'Italia 206817 - Scarica Immagini Vettoriali Gratis, Grafica Vettoriale, e Disegno Modelli

Why in Italy is the day of liberation celebrated on April 25?
April 25 is the day on which every year in Italy the feast of the Liberation from Nazi-Fascism is celebrated, which took place in 1945. Of course, the German and Fascist occupation in Italy did not end in a single day but is considered to be April 25 as a symbolic date, because that day in 1945 coincided with the beginning of the retreat by the soldiers after the population had rebelled and the partisans had organized a coordinated plan to take back the cities.

What happened on April 25, 1945?
The Upper Italy National Liberation Committee, on April 25, 1945, approved an order for a general insurrection in the territories still crushed by the occupation. The Committee coordinated the various groups of the Resistance in the North and on April 19 had launched on the radio and broadcast in the newspapers the proclamation to the occupiers: "Surrender or perish". Six days later, the coordinated plan of the partisans led to the liberation of the major capitals of the North: Milan and Turin. Furthermore, on the evening of April 25, Benito Mussolini tried to escape from Milan, disguised as a German soldier, but two days later he was captured.

25 aprile, come festeggiarlo in quarantena | Studenti.it

National Holiday
The decision to choose April 25 as "Liberation Day" was taken in 1946, when the provisional Italian government established with a decree that April 25 should be a "national holiday".
The date was set definitively three years later. Since then, April 25 has been a public holiday, such as Sundays, May 1, Christmas Day and the Republic Day, which occurs on June 2.

Liberation Day in other countries
Other European countries also remember the end of foreign occupation during the Second World War, but on different dates: the Netherlands and Denmark celebrate it on May 5, in Norway it is a holiday on May 8, in Romania on August 23.

When World War II ended in the world
The end of the Second World War, on a global level, is instead indicated with the date of September 2, 1945, when Japan, less than a month after the launch of the second atomic bomb on its territory, surrendered. While in Europe the end of the war was signed on May 8, 1945 with the signing of the surrender that followed the suicide of Adolf Hitler by eight days, which took place on April 30 in the Berlin bunker now besieged by the Soviets.