Young, vi­brant busi­ness per­son and so­cial ac­tivist from Lud­hi­ana, an af­fa­ble and hum­ble per­sona, in the 1 mil­lion fol­low­ers So­cial Me­dia club, in­ter­na­tion­ally ac­claimed Twit­ter in­flu­encer and WSN as­so­ci­ate, Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja pays homage at the First Sikh War Memo­r­ial in Forli, Italy to Sikh sol­diers who died fight­ing the armies of Hitler and Mus­solini dur­ing World War II and are cel­e­brated by Ital­ians as “sav­iours of Flo­rence.”

With prayers on my lips, re­spect in my heart and pride in my mind, I trav­elled to the mid­dle of nowhere to the heart­lands of Italy to the town of Forli, Italy, nearly 200 miles from the Grand Canal in Venice to pay homage to my Sikh an­ces­tors who get lov­ing rev­er­ence as ‘sav­iours of Flo­rence’ from Ital­ians, as they died fight­ing the fas­cist forces of Hitler and Mus­solini as part of the British-In­dia Im­pe­ri­al­ist army in World War II.

Ac­com­pa­nied by Sikh friends and as­so­ci­ates from var­i­ous parts of Italy, I reached the world-fa­mous In­dian Army War Ceme­tery which is main­tained by Com­mon­wealth War Graves Com­mis­sion and has to its side the mam­moth Sikh Memo­r­ial main­tained by the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion of Forli.

Dr. Raoul Mosconi, Peace and Hu­man Rights Ad­viser and Coun­cil­lor of Forli was pre­sent at the War memo­r­ial on be­half of the Mu­nic­i­pal Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Forli. He greeted me on be­half of the city and I re­spect­fully pre­sented him two Khan­das and an Ek-Onkar in­signia for the Mayor of Forli, Mr. David Drei and told him that I had brought for them from the Pun­jab. In his con­ver­sa­tion with me, he was very proud of the Sikhs and re­peat­edly said, “We are very grate­ful to the Sikhs and I feel very happy to be as­so­ci­ated with them. The Sikhs fought for free­dom and democ­racy and we shall for­ever be in­debted to them.” These words res­onate in my ears and make me proud of our mar­tial her­itage.

Lo­cal his­to­rian Ro­mano Rossi, whose an­ces­tors fought along­side Sikhs told me that, “Sikhs fought in Forli be­tween 1943 and 1945. Ac­cord­ing to the records of the pres­ti­gious Com­mon­wealth War Graves Com­mis­sion, 352 Sikhs died here.” Ro­mano Rossi, spares time and ef­fort on his own vo­li­tion to trace the back­ground and de­tails of Sikh sol­diers who died in World War II. He is a team mate of the clas­si­cal Sikh chron­i­cler of our times -who put the 82 thou­sand plus Sikh sol­diers into fo­cus -Bhupin­der Singh Hol­land, through his vast trav­els and mon­u­men­tal pub­lished works on the sub­ject. His as­so­ci­ate Sat­nam Singh Novel­lara of Sha­heed Mil­i­tary Yadgari Com­mit­tee, Italy, ably as­sisted me in pro­vid­ing minute de­tails of the Sikh sol­diers. He also acted as a re­mark­able in­ter­locu­tor trans­lat­ing Ital­ian into Pun­jabi for me. He fur­ther in­formed me that as per data col­lected so far, 5773 sol­diers died in Italy and a ma­jor­ity of them were Sikhs. Sikh sol­diers also fought in Cassino, Flo­rence, Ra­vana and San­gro River.

“We are very grate­ful to the Sikhs and I feel very happy to be as­so­ci­ated with them. The Sikhs fought for free­dom and democ­racy.”

Raoul Mosconi, Peace and Hu­man Rights Ad­viser and Coun­cil­lor of Forli

I was amazed at sight of the mar­vel­lous gi­gan­tic sculp­ture of the Sikh sol­dier hold­ing aloft the flag of free­dom, and of an­other Sikh sol­dier ac­com­pa­ny­ing him nurs­ing an in­jured Ital­ian sol­dier in the true spirit of Bhai Ghanaiya Ji. The sculp­tor Ste­fan Popdim­itrov who crafted this first mil­i­tary mon­u­ment has rep­re­sented the true spirit of the Sikh sol­diers. It must be pointed out that the po­si­tion of the memo­r­ial sculp­ture is un­miss­able and promi­nent.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, un­like in Ieper in Bel­gium and the war ceme­ter­ies of Hol­land where Sikh sol­diers were buried, Forli has the dis­tinc­tion of cre­mat­ing Sikh sol­diers as per Sikh and Hindu rites.

“We are able to live with ho­n­our, dig­nity and in­de­pen­dence. In the war, they fought and died for us, wear­ing the tur­bans.”

British Prime Min­is­ter Win­ston Churchill

I was hum­bled when Gur­sha­ran Singh pre­sented me a copy of the book -Sikh Sol­diers in Italy in World War II by Bal­winder Singh Cha­hal, which gives ex­ten­sive de­tails of Sikh sol­diers who died fight­ing in Italy. Jagjit Singh of Sikhi Sewa So­ci­ety in Italy was kind enough to put Bal­winder Singh in touch with me. In nearly a decade or so, Sikhs in Italy have built 46 Gur­d­waras and are slowly and steadily cre­at­ing a niche for them­selves in so­cial and pub­lic life.

Thank You @Singh­Lions and #thank to the whole #Sikh com­mu­nity from town of #Forlì #Ro­magna @buon_­vi­vere @Re­gioneER pic.twit­ter.com/​En­prl­sYnZe

— Raoul Mosconi (@raoul­mosconi) Au­gust 23, 2017

My jour­ney would not have been smooth and in­ter­est­ing but for the sup­port of my friend Kuljin­der Singh France who in­tro­duced me to an amaz­ing in­di­vid­ual Dil­bagh Singh of Man­tova who drove me from the Venice Marco Polo Air­port and then back to my ho­tel in Abano Terme, Padua.. I am grate­ful to him for ar­rang­ing the whole col­lec­tive with love and af­fec­tion. I am also grate­ful to my hosts, In­flow Sum­mits who made this trip pos­si­ble.

On my pre­mier visit to this part of Italy, with as many Ital­ians that I in­ter­acted with, I felt that they are like Pun­jabis -gre­gar­i­ous, lively, help­ful and hos­pitable. When­ever they looked at me, I thought, they are see­ing me “with re­spect in their eyes”.

Pay­ing homage to the Sikh sol­diers of World War II in Forlì, Italy with Coun­cil­lor @raoul­mosconi, Ital­ian Sikhs & his­to­ri­ans #RT #WWII pic.twit­ter.com/​eMxwT­D­grY3

— Har­jin­der S Kukreja (@Singh­Lions) Au­gust 24, 2017

In the en­vi­rons of the mon­u­men­tal memo­r­ial, with the sun play­ing hide and seek, we all felt proud click­ing pic­tures in front of the memo­r­ial. The young and old Sikhs and a cou­ple of chil­dren added grace to the oc­ca­sion. We were all one voice in ex­press­ing our grat­i­tude to the Eu­ro­peans for their grat­i­tude in ac­knowl­edg­ing Sikh con­tri­bu­tion and re­spect­ing the Sikh at­tire in­clud­ing un­shorn hair and the eas­ily recog­nis­able tur­ban.

The plaque on the memo­r­ial, placed there not by any one or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Sikhs in Italy, but by the generic “Sikh Com­mu­nity Italy” -as the board read, sums it all with the quo­ta­tion from for­mer British Prime Min­is­ter Win­ston Churchill, “We are able to live with ho­n­our, dig­nity and in­de­pen­dence. In the war, they fought and died for us, wear­ing the tur­bans.”

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Stand­ing be­fore the memo­r­ial, I felt as if I too was there fight­ing the war for Sar­bat da Bhala -wel­fare for all hu­man­ity. With my visit, I have made my hum­ble con­tri­bu­tion to putting Forli on the global Sikh map.