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Italy Remembers
Italy Remembers
CANADA’S FALLEN SOLDIERS
BY ANDREW EXELBY | PHOTOS COURTESY COMMUNITIES IN BLOOM
Communities in Bloom is a grassroots program with strong community ties. Each year many CiB participants help coordinate Remembrance Day tributes, cemetery projects and memorial initiatives that commemorate our fallen heroes. Our soldiers’ sacrifices are beyond what most can imagine, and CiB is humbled to have the opportunity to honour soldiers each year.
(Rough) translation of a notice placed in the Cervia newspaper: Photo shows the advance towards Ravenna of a unit of Canadian soldiers in the winter of 1944/45 after having freed Cervia, where five of their comrades fell on the morning of October 22, 1944. With this initiative we are soliciting your membership to ask the Municipal Administration that the plaque, which remembers them, be placed in a more suitable and more visible position in the historic center in order to honour their memory with dignity. These young Canadians died at the dawn of our liberation after a long night of merciless warfare. Thank you.
This effort expands past Canada as well. Tributes to Canadian soldiers have also taken many forms in other countries. Since 2016, Communities in Bloom’s partner in Italy, Asproflor, has coordinated the creation of a “Communities in Bloom Garden” to recognize their country’s involvement in the International Communities in Bloom Challenge. Mauro Paradisi designs these gardens, a Construction Engineer from Turin, a Judge for Comuni Fioriti and an International Judge for Communities in Bloom. In 2016, this garden program introduced Communities in Bloom across Italy, and in 2017 Canada’s 150th Anniversary was celebrated with communities such as Cervia, Italy, becoming involved.
Cervia Città di Giardino was amongst the Italian communities liberated by the Canadian Armed Forces in October 1944 during World War II. Five Canadian soldiers
lost their lives during the battles for the liberation of Cervia — a sacrifice that residents of Cervia have not forgotten.
In recognition of the liberation and the support provided following the battles, Cervia honours the memory of these Canadian soldiers every year with an annual ceremony on October 22. In 2017, a new plaque honouring all five fallen soldiers was unveiled at Piazza Garibaldi as part of a re-enactment of the liberation of Cervia.
In continued respect of Canada and its soldiers, in 2019, Cervia invited Communities in Bloom representatives from the City of Castlegar, B.C., under the artful guidance of a Communities in Bloom International judge, to build their gardens in Cervia. Volunteer gardeners travelled to Cervia to build these gardens with the generous support of Cervia, its gardeners and citizens.
