Dario Venegoni, 66-year old journalist, son of Carlo Venegoni and Ada Buffulini, two partisans deported to the concentration camp at Bolzano, has been elected as the national president of ANED, the national association for ex-political deportees. The election took place at the ANED national congress in Bolzano.
In a brief statement to the meeting immediately after his election, the new president said “I doubt that any reasoning individual could envy the role that has been entrusted to me”.
He becomes only the third national president in the 70-year history of the association, after Piero Caleffi, who died in 1978, and Gianfranco Maris, who died in August aged 94.
Venegoni first joined the ANED national council in 1995. From 1997, he has run the ANED website, and from 1992 to 1998 he edited the ANED publication “Red Triangle”. From 2005 to 2013, he served as President of the Milan branch, and became vice-president of the national council on 21 March 2010.
In 2002, he published “Quattro uomini liberi”, which concerned the life and struggles of the Venegoni brothers, Carlo, Mauro (murdered by Fascists in 1944, and posthumously awarded the Gold Medal for Military Bravery), Pierino and Guido Venegoni.
In 2004, he published an important work on the concentration camp at Bolzano, “Uomimi, donne e bambini nel lager di Bolzano” (published by ANED/Mimesis), which recounted the history of the camp, and listed the names and fates of thousands of prisoners; the book was revised in 2005.
In 2006, he oversaw the publication Danuta Czech’s “Kalendarium. Gli avvenimenti del campo di concentramento di Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939-45”, Minedis, translated by Gianluca Piccinini.
In 2007, he produced a public exhibition (along with Leonardo Visco Gilardi) “Oltre quel muro, la resistenza nel campo di Bolzano 1944-1945”, about the concentration camp at Bolzano, based on dozens of unpublished documents.
In 2015, he edited a book by his mother Ada Buffulini “Quel tempo terribile e magnifico. Lettere clandestine da San Vittore e dal Lager di Bolzano e altri scritti”, published by Mimesis.
Book editor and writer in his own right, and organiser of meetings and events, he has helped ensure continuity in the work of ANED in the months since the death of Gianfranco Maris, along with other members of the national executive.