Bologna, August 2, 2026 – Ten minutes that make the difference between living and dying. It is a story with a happy ending, but set in one of the darkest pages of last century’s news, that of the adopted Guelfese Gianluigi Bonora.
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A man miraculously escaped from the massacre of August 2, 1980 at Bologna central station: “I worked as a driver and was a partner in the porter cooperative that, at the time, managed all the manual work at the Felsinea station – rewinds the memory tape the 90-year-old –. I almost always moved outside the station but, that day, I was on the day shift from 5 to 12 to help colleagues unload the wagons with cars following a train coming from the south.”
That 10-minute delay at the East square
A routine operation for two porters and a railwayman, with vehicles to be arranged at the East Square: “There were only a couple of cars left to unload but the license plate of one of them, an old Citroen, did not match the travelers’ papers and we just couldn’t get it down – Bonora recalls clearly –. A ten-minute delay longer than expected on our schedule.” And while the porters were returning to the central core of the station at 10:25, the bomb exploded.
“Smoke and stones everywhere, hell, but I was incredibly unscathed – he continues –. I remember vividly the fear of that moment and the instinct to search among those piles of rubble for any living person to help. A gesture I had only seen in TV documentaries after the bombings of World War II. Then, perhaps due to impact with some protruding iron, a sharp stabbing pain in one hand: a deep wound with a severed nerve.”
The subscription promoted by our newspaper and Bonora’s choice
A severe diagnosis and the surname Bonora ending up on the list of injured in the massacre: “With a place as beneficiary of part of the proceeds coming from the subscription promoted by the editorial staff of ’Il Resto del Carlino’ and supported by readers – confides Bonora –. My choice? Without hesitation, not to accept. That amount could be used to support someone with injuries much more serious than mine. I, after all, had already received my blessing in the form of an old Citroen”.
Snapshots that, however, remain engraved in the mind: “Even today I cannot understand that absurd and vile act – concludes the elderly man who has lived in Castel Guelfo for a long time –. So many innocent victims. That day at the station there were happy families leaving for vacation. Many smiling young people and children, full of hope and with a whole life ahead. Time passes and wounds heal but that pain, no, it never goes away.”
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