The wartime events of World War II saw the Italian Red Cross engaged throughout the country, in the colonies and on the African, Balkan and Russian battlefields; in Sardinia, too, the Italian Red Cross made its contribution through its structures and presence on the ground.
In Cagliari starting in 1941, a large health facility, the San Giorgio Hospital, was built by the Italian Red Cross to meet wartime needs. It was built inside caves in the Viale Merello area, a clever logistical choice that took into account the desirability of providing inpatients and refugees with adequate air-raid shelter.
It should be noted that without San Giorgio there would have been no emergency hospital care in Cagliari; therefore, this facility is due a prominent role in the city’s history. The apocalypse of war also hit Cagliari, and the heavy bombings of February 17, 26 and 28, March 31 and May 13, 1943, caused many casualties and sowed destruction. The population took refuge in towns in the interior and the few remaining Cagliari residents found shelter in caves so that for most of them the point of reference was the Italian Red Cross Hospital. In that immense tragedy it was the only operational health facility in the city during the Allied air raids. Among the affected buildings were the St. John of God Hospital and the Military Hospital, which had to be displaced; it remained operational precisely because in the cave the Red Cross Hospital. Its activity was uninterrupted to the extent that 1628 operations between minor and major surgery could be calculated. Once the great bombing emergency ceased, after the fateful September 8, 1943, the Hospital continued its meritorious work treating the general sick. The use of the San Giorgio Hospital by the Italian Red Cross was quickly forgotten, but it cannot be erased, a true page of history written by the Italian Red Cross in relief of Cagliari. In the impossibility of visiting the hospital, a photographic exhibition on the San Giorgio Hospital and Red Cross activities during the war will be set up on the premises.
