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Italy’s Liberation Day (Festa della liberazione), also known as the Anniversary of the Liberation (Anniversario della liberazione d’Italia), Anniversary of the Resistance (anniversario della Resistenza), or simply 25 April is a national Italian holiday commemorating the end of the Italian Civil War and the end of Nazi occupation of the country during World War II. This is distinct from the Republic Day (Festa della Repubblica) which takes place on 2 June.
April 25, 1945 is the day on which the National High Liberation Committee of Italy (CLNAI) – whose headquarters was in Milan and was chaired by Luigi Longo, Emilio Sereni, Sandro Pertini and Leo Valiani (among others the designated president Rodolfo Morandi, Giustino Arpesani and Achille Marazza) – proclaimed the general insurrection in all the territories still occupied by the Nazi-Fascists, indicating to all the partisan forces active in Northern Italy who were part of the Volunteer Body of Liberty to attack the fascist and German garrisons by imposing surrender, days before the arrival of the allied troops; at the same time CLNAI issued legislative decrees, assuming power “in the name of the Italian people and as a delegate of the Italian Government”, establishing among other things the death sentence for all the fascist hierarchs, including Benito Mussolini, who would have been reached and shot three days later.
By 1 May, all of northern Italy was liberated, including Bologna (21 April), Genoa (23 April), Milan and Turin (25 April), and Venice (28 April). The liberation put an end to twenty-three years of fascist dictatorship and five years of war. It symbolically represents the beginning of the historical journey which led to the referendum of 2 June 1946, when Italians opted for the end of the monarchy and the creation of the Italian Republic, which was followed by the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic in 1948
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