Abstract
“On the twenty-fifth of July [1943],” Remo Pellegrini testified, “Those of us who were in jail broke the slats from our cell windows”: a symbolic gesture intended to celebrate Mussolini’s fall and the end of Fascism. Those broken slats were the narrow loophole through which, on March 24, 1944, Pellegrini was able to see the roundup of the prisoners bound for the Fosse Ardeatine.2 No one was supposed to see: as soon as it began, the Germans and the police “started shutting up all the wickets” on the cell doors (Roberto Guzzo).
Il ventiquattro marzo alla mattina A Regina Coeli presso le porte
Presero questa gente poverina Innocenti li portano alla morte.
Neanche fosse carne selvaggina.
March 24, in the middle of the morning They gathered these unfortunates together
By the gates of the jail, Regina Coeli And innocent lead them to their death.
As if they were animals, wild game.
—Egidio Cristini1
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Notes
Egidio Cristini, “Il massacro dei trecentoventi,” in the CD Avanti Popolo—6—Fischia il vento—Istituto Ernesto de Martino—Hobby & Work, Rome 1998.
Remo Pellegrini, trial testimony, Processo Priebke. Le testimonianze, il memoriale, ed. Cinzia Dal Maso and Simona Micheli, Rome, Il Mondo 3, 1996, p. 31.
Kappler trial verdict, in Attilio Ascarelli, Le Fosse Ardeatine, Rome, ANFIM, 1992, p. 128.
Curatola [Luigi Solinas], La morte ha bussato tre volte, Rome, Donatello De Luigi, 1944, p. 175.
see Nuto Revelli, Il disperso di Marburg, Turin, Einaudi, 1994
Alessandro Portelli, “The Massacre at Civitella Val di Chiana (Tuscany, June 29, 1944. Myth and Politics, Mourning and Common Sense,” The Battle of Valle Giulia. Oral History and the Art of Dialogue, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1997, pp. 140–60.
Ernesto de Martino, Morte e pianto rituale, Turin, Boringhieri, 1975 (1958), p. 128.
Lia Albertelli, “La prima volta alle Fosse Ardeatine,” in Giorno dipioggia alle Fosse, Rome, 1945, pp. 21–22.
F. Motto, “Gli sfollati e i rifugiati”; [Michele Valentini], “La scoperta delle vittime trucidate dai tedeschi,” Risorgimento liberale, June 5, 1944, appendix to Motto, and in Arrigo Paladini, Via Tasso, p. 79–83.
Silverio Corvisieri, Bandiera Rossa nella Resistenza Romana, Rome, Samonà e Savelli, 1968, p. 124.
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© 2003 Alessandro Portelli
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Portelli, A. (2003). The Massacre. In: The Order Has Been Carried Out. Palgrave Studies in Oral History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4039-8169-1_7
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