Marzabotto
just to the south of Bologna is famous for its Etruscan archaeological site.
But it is also the famous for another far sadder reason. It was in the hills
just above the town that the worst massacre of civilians in Western Europe during
World War II took place.
Monte
Sole is a mountainous zone that sits between two valleys that are important
lines of communication between Bologna and Tuscany. Climbing out of the valleys
one enters another world.
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| Caprara, Marzabotto, BO |
In
late September 1944 the people who lived and farmed here as well as a sizable
number of refugees who had fled the bombing of the towns in the valley thought
that the war would pass them by in this remote area.
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| Poggiolo, Marzabotto, BO |
But
a toxic set of circumstances was coming together that would lead to disaster.
The American 5th Army had broken through the Gothic line and was
less than 20 kilometres away and was pushing down the valleys towards Bologna.
A highly effective band of partisans was operating in the area causing much
disruption to vital lines of communication and casualties amongst the German
occupiers. General Kesselring had given orders to a unit of the SS; veterans of
the brutalities of the Russian front to remove the partisan menace and secure
the rear area behind the German front line.
Many
of the mostly desperately poor farmers in the area were not too keen on the
presence of the partisans as under a subtle menace they were often forced
supply food and shelter without payment. Some also sensed the danger of having
the partisans in their midst.
A
certain Major Walter Reder of the SS, fresh from a string of atrocities towards
civilians in the Tosco Emilian Apennines was to lead the anti-partisan sweep
that also included elements of the Wehrmacht and a few Italian guides.
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| San Martino, Marzabotto, BO |
The
area around Monte Sole was encircled and on the 29th of September
the sweep began from several directions. The able bodied men fearing
deportation to work as slave labourers or worse fled to hide in the thick woods
that one finds here leaving the women children and elderly at home thinking
that they would not be touched.
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| San Martino, Marzabotto, BO |
The
partisan leader “Lupo” (wolf) was surprised in his sleep and he and some of his
men were soon killed. Seeing the size of the sweep, the partisans after putting
up a fight mostly melted away to safer areas outside the ring to fight another
day.
In
four days’ house by house, hamlet by hamlet nearly a thousand mostly women,
children and old people were slaughtered often with the men hiding in the woods
above as witnesses to the killing of their families below.
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| Cerpiano, Monzumo,BO |
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| Cerpiano, Monzumo,BO |
I
had read the moving and brilliantly written book by Jack Olsen – “Silence on
Monte Sole”. so when I arrived to see the most significant area I was aware of
the backstory of the places I would see along my walk.
After leaving the car at the visitor centre
at "il Poggiolo", I made for the nearby San Martino Di
Caprara. Like most of the other sites, only
the foundations remain of the church and other buildings of the hamlet where
seventy-seven people were murdered including forty-seven who had taken refuge
in the church.
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| San Martino, Marzabotto, BO |
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| San Martino, Marzabotto, BO |
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| San Martino, Marzabotto, BO |
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| Tombstone for a mother and 7 children. San Martino, Marzabotto, BO |
A stiff climb took me to what remains of
the hamlet of Caprara di Sopra. This was the site of another massacre. Forty-four people were
herded into a small room few survived the grenades that were hurled into the
room. A total of sixty-two died here.
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| Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO |
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| Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO |
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| Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO |
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| Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO |
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| Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO |
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| Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO |
The road runs along the hillside to the
church of Casaglia. Photographs of the ruined church usually illustrate
articles concerning the massacre, but only two people actually died here. The
church was full of people hoping the Germans would not violate a church. The
people in the church were ordered out and told to make their way to the
cemetery just along the road. A couple of people fled across the fields in the
confusion and survived. The priest was murdered at the altar. A crippled woman
who was unable to walk was the second victim here.
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| The Church of Casaglia, Marzabotto,Bo |
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| The Church of Casaglia, Marzabotto,Bo |
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| The Church of Casaglia, Marzabotto,Bo |
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| The Church of Casaglia, Marzabotto,Bo |
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| The Church of Casaglia, Marzabotto,Bo |
A modern Via Crucis leads to the Cemetery of
Casaglia. The descriptions by the survivors five of whom miraculously lived to
tell the tale forms the most moving part of Olsen’s book. The victims were
lined up against the cemetery chapel and a machine gun set up at child height
mowed them down. The survivors were covered with the bodies often of their close
relatives. One can still see the pockmarks of the bullets in the walls and a
cemetery cross holed by passing bullets. Seventy-one died here.
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| Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO |
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| Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO |
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| Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO |
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| Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO |
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| Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO |
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| Bullet holes.Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO |
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| Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO |
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| Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto, BO |
The last location on this walk of horror is
probably the site of the most shocking and barbaric acts. Cerpiano housed an Oratory with an
infant’s school. There were many refugees here. The people including many
small children were herded into the ridiculously small chapel. Again the carnage was
caused by hand grenades tossed into the nave.
The troops held an all night party in the adjoining buildings getting drunk on the
wine they found in the cellars. Now and again a soldier would pass the church
and put a bullet into anybody who was found to be still alive. Forty-four were
killed. Two children and a teacher survived.
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| Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO |
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| Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO |
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| Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO |
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| Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO |
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| Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO |
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| Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO |
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| Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO |
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| Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO |
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| Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO |
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| Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO |
I visited just a fraction of the area. The
horrors of the places I visited were repeated until the 5th of
October more or less in the same way and with the same results over the whole
area.
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| Cerpiano, Monzumo, BO |
Reader’s troops were often not just content
to simply kill. The corpses of pregnant women were opened to revel the foetus,
the body of boy was impaled on a pole and left in a field like a scarecrow,
just to cite a couple of examples.
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| Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO |
The
last place that I visited was the mausoleum in Marzabotto down in the valley
with the panels of photographs of the victims to remind us that these were
people and not numbers.
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| Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO |
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| Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO |
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| Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO |
Water
Rader was one of the very few to be brought to justice for war crimes in Italy
was given life imprisonment in 1951.
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| Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO |
But we can join a disturbing series of dots that bring
us to present day European politics.
Under pressure from Austria, the Government under
Bettino Craxi pardoned Rader and he was deported to Austria. There he was personally met at the airport by the Austrian Minister of
Defense, a certain Friedhelm Frischenschlager.
A wealthy landowning member of the Austrian Freedom Party gave him material support.
Frischenschlager, was at the time a
member of the Austrian Freedom Party. He is the son of a Nazi party member. He
embarrassed the Government of the time by appearing without explanation at an
SS memorial ceremony in Salzburg.
He later served as a deputy in the European Parliament
and was Director of the department of democratization of the OSCE Mission in
Kosovo (2001-2003), and Secretary General of the Union of European Federalists,
Brussels (UEF).
The Freedom
party, which still has neo Nazi sympathies came close and may still win the
rerun of the Austrian presidential election. Interesting times for Europe.
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| Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO |
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| Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO |
Italy
does not come out too well either. The Italian Communist party was quick to
distort the story for their own ends.
Although Lupo’s band of partisans called
themselves the “Red Star Brigade”, Lupo and his followers were decidedly not
Communists. A rhetorical version of events came to be accepted almost as the
truth with tales of a heroic resistance of the partisans to the last man and
the subsequent martyrdom of the inhabitants.
The decedents of the PCI after the
merger with leftist elements of the church have set up a happy clappy “Peace
School” near san Martino to be more in keeping with the times. The president in
a typically Italian jobs for the boy’s scenario is the brother of an ex-Prime
Minister.
We
can see a typical initiative of the “Peace School” mentality at San Martino.
Part of the ruins have been fouled with large white “artistic” plastic tears
attached chicken wire spread over the ruins. I presume it is an artistic
installation.
The
Catholic church also has a strong but quiet presence in the area with a couple of
religious communities. One of the founders of the Christian Democrats is buried
in the cemetery at Casaglia. It must be remembered that three priests were murdered here.
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| San Martino, Marzabotto. 3 priests were murdered. |
Crucifixes
and Alters abound in the ruins.
The
fact that there was little interest on the part of the Italians in calling to
account the authors of this and many other of the war crimes committed in
1944/5 was due to the fact that the Italians feared the Yugoslavs and Greeks
would ask in turn for the extradition of Italians implicated in war crimes
there.
Similar methods as those used by
the Germans in Northern Italy had been used by the Italians on the other side
of the Adriatic.
Whilst the victims were remembered with much rhetoric by the “Authorities” a cynical
silence prevailed on the judicial front until a few years ago when it was felt
safe and expedient to call for the prosecution of the perpetrators, most of whom
had already passed away.
The German courts also helped to prolong the process to allow natural justice to prevail.
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| Cerpiano, Monzumo, BO |
The
state of the ruins we see today is misleading. The Germans had limited
themselves to burning the buildings. The front line of the American advance
eventually came to beneath Monte Sole and the area became bloody battlefield in
the quest to take the mountain. The area was heavily shelled and bombed by the
Allies and the buildings in the area were reduced mostly to the state we see
today. More of the surviving population
were killed by American shells.
The
area today is sparsely populated and is now a regional nature reserve.
