Born in 1919 in Montaner di Sarmede, Pagnoca was one of the leading figures of the Resistance. A second lieutenant in the mountain artillery in the former Yugoslavia, after 8 September he had returned to his home in Montaner where, together with Don Giuseppe Faè (Don Galera), the village parish priest, he had begun to organise a widespread local resistance movement.
Following the arrest of Don Giuseppe on 26 March 1944, he moved permanently to the Cansiglio Plateau with the other young men of Montaner, founding what would become the legendary battalion, later a brigade and finally the Vittorio Veneto Brigade Group, comprising members from Montaner and later also from Vittorio Veneto and neighbouring villages, of which he remained military commander until Liberation.
A man of many talents (an exceptional marksman, an expert in weapons and explosives, a keen walker and a highly skilled photographer: we owe much of the photographic record of the years 1944–45 to him), Pagnoca was not merely a leading figure in the Resistance, but a legendary figure, almost a myth. Discharged with the rank of deputy commander of the Nannetti unit, he served for several months as police commissioner of Treviso, was decorated several times for military valour in the Resistance, and was made an honorary citizen of Vittorio Veneto. He sought to keep the memory of the Resistance alive: it is to him that we owe the founding in 1980 of the Historical Institute of the Resistance in Vittorio Veneto, which is still active today and collects the memoirs and documents of the Resistance period in the Vittorio Veneto area.
He passed away in 2003, leaving behind a legacy of memories, examples and testimonies of a life lived in the name of freedom and civic commitment. For these reasons, a trail named after him (the Sentiero Pagnoca, CAI Trail 1061) starts today from Piazza Montaner; climbing up to Cansiglio, it passes by several sites associated with the Resistance, ending at Col Alt and the Parco dei Carbonai.
For further information on this route, please see:
