We were thinking that afternoon, in our daily medical routine, driving on the road from Appia leading uphill to Roccamonfina, on the provincial road of Valogno, in the high province of Caserta, how much more Sinner and how little Piffer - blameless one, even less guilty the other - was prominent in the life that stands out these days.

We were thinking, turn after turn, on a path hidden among chestnut woods, deserted by cars in general, about the happiness of that unknown cyclist descending, dark and silent, with a regular helmet, crossing our path, who had brushed past us quickly and serenely. Narrow road, straight line at the 4th kilometer of the SP that runs on the left side of a tiny cluster of ancient houses and much intimacy between the alleys and the pavements. And we thought right after, the heart turned to Sara Piffer who died with the horizon ahead in Trentino, not in a critical turn of the route, to that elbow curve next to the parish church of the small village, already that blind curve to the right where the road narrows, and where a car going up and a cyclist coming down could absolutely collide: if not both maximally prudent, and not smiling at each other cordially.

The road is never a faithful friend to a cyclist, even if the sun belongs to everyone, not just for Stevie Wonder, and the way, life, belongs to him too....

We were thinking the other day, about the fatality that slithers like this on a straight road from Mezzacorona to Palù di Giovo, or in a silent narrow passage uphill between Valogno and Roccamonfina, Campania fortunately at least distant from the city: and yet with a subtle danger, the fragile diaphragm of centimeters, conditio sine qua non.

We were thinking, it was the same day of the Day of Remembrance, too much Sinner, too little Piffer, and between the two, basically only a couple of Trentino valleys apart once, and we climbed thus kilometer after kilometer onto the Shoah and that warning phrase by Liliana Segre, "The Shoah will soon be forgotten", doubting that the absence of its witnesses one day might dilute the world's commitment and passion in respecting the lesson of the past.

And it came back to our mind while traveling how Roccamonfina, this hill town at the foot of a Volcano and the Sanctuary of the Madonna dei Lattani, suffered from the inhuman violence of the Nazis in retreat from those territories, after the armistice of September '43. With the sacrifice of its thousand able-bodied civilian men, arrested by the Germans in disarray and deported in cattle cars to Germany. With their fate sealed for the most part, towards the concentration camps of Birkenau and Dachau...

And the late afternoon illuminated the image of one of them, one of the few survivors who always spoke for all of that story, upon returning to Italy and home, after the war. His name was Andrea Maccarone, that surviving veteran, who would become the town doctor, and would remain "his" primary and absolute doctor even after retirement, in the early 2000s. "A doctor remains a doctor for life," he would tell us. And he would smile, hinting at his faithful companion, that "Legnano" bicycle on which for decades he would visit his patients, even in the remote farmhouses of Gallo and Garofoli.

"The bicycle never leaves me alone, you see, I feel safe and strong with her, much more than with a car," he would always say, and we seem to hear him even now that he's gone, telling us with emotion about the Shoah and the bicycle, we think of Sara Piffer, not Sinner anymore, a narrative of humanity for life, even beyond the modesty of our own life. "And be careful with cyclists, dear doctor, if you take the road to Valogno on your way back". Then, as now.