San Pietro Mussolino Middle School is located in a small town far from the station and close to the mountains. During the Second World War, this town was also attacked and some anecdotes of the bishop and people who barricaded themselves in the church at that time are still passed down. On the wall of the government office right behind the school, there is a mosaic that depicts the destruction during the war and at the church, there is a monument to preserve the memory of it.. This middle school is a branch school of Scuola Media Statale “G. Ungaretti” where the tree planting took place in 2000. The person who led the project, Mr. Livio Fedrigo, is an art teacher and also participated in the tree planting ceremony held at F.P. Cordenons Middle School in Santa Maria di Sala, Venizia in 2000.
About 200 children from the local elementary and middle schools and Japanese kindergarten participated in the tree planting ceremony. Following the opening speech and a speech of welcome given by the child mayor (a girl), there was a performance. It was a story about the seedling revived from the ground that was covered with the ashes of the atomic bomb and black rain. The elder children performed the part from the atomic bombing until reviving of the seedling, and they put children’s drawings together at the end so a huge tree emerged on the black cloth. Also, as the younger kindergarten children wave pompoms in rhythm, the children who dressed up as trees read poems and sang songs. They succeeded in making a wonderful large scale performance by letting children of different ages from kindergarten to middle school do whatever they can do to make it together. After the concert and a speech made by the local member of Parliament in the gym, the tree was planted in the schoolyard.
There is a voluntary self-defense group in the city called Alpini which consisted of former soldiers. These Alpini members and children’s Kaki Tree Committee members will take care of the tree. Since the mayor assigned the Alpini members the task of protecting and taking care of the persimmon tree, they were marching while protecting the tree during the ceremony. One of the Alpini members told us in Italian “I read the news of the atomic bomb in the newspaper during the war. I was very much concerned.”
