1980
January 28, Rome
Iolanda Rozzi, 62 years old, housewife

She died after a month of agonizing suffering. Iolanda Rozzi, a member of the Christian Democratic Party, 62 years old, is the latest victim of terrorist violence. On the evening of January 28, a “commando” of the Proletarian Combatant Nuclei set fire to the door of her home on Via Carlo Della Porta in Torpignattara, where she had lived with her sister Rosina for 17 years, who was the secretary of the Christian Democratic Party women’s section in the neighborhood.
“My sister heard noises, then the sound of the doorbell. She never opened to anyone, but that night she thought it was me.” Rosina Rozzi, barely holding back tears, recounts the tragic episode once again. “She was immediately engulfed by flames and couldn’t save herself. A neighbor, Amleto Masci, managed to get her out of the apartment, but he was also injured.”
The terrorists left their signature near the door of their murder: “One of our units discovered a militant of the anti-revolutionary party. Death to the servants of imperialism. Strike the structures and the men.”
Perhaps, the police say, the target was someone else. Perhaps they wanted to harm sister Rosina, who headed the women’s section of the nearby Christian Democratic Party headquarters. “I was out for work. Jolanda was waiting for me like every evening. I only saw her again in the hospital, with those terrible burns. The prognosis called for 60 days of hospitalization. I still can’t grasp this absurd death: she didn’t make it because she was poisoned by the carbon monoxide released in the fire.”
Jolanda Rozzi didn’t even have time to realize what was happening. “She said she heard something like a rush of water. It was actually the sound of the spray cans with which her assassins left the “message” on the wall. Then the terrorists, before taking the elevator, rang the doorbell and my sister opened it, getting burned.” The next day, the newspapers reported the news of the attack, as one of the many episodes of political violence, of “microterrorism”.