Page 151 - NONOSTANTE IL LUNGO TEMPO TRASCORSO…Le stragi nazifasciste nella guerra di liberazione 1943–1945
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ENG
THE
RESID
EECH
P
BY
ENT
SP
SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT
O F THE REP UBLIC
OF THE REPUBLIC
ARELLA
TT
SERGI
SERGIO MATTARELLA
O MA
DURING THE CEREMONY ON
OCCASION OF THE 79TH
ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION
Civitella in Val di Chiana, 25th April 2024. who were supposed to be executed, were in-
I address my greetings to all of you, to the Vice jured or managed to escape. In their shocked and
President of the Senate, to the Minister of De- frightened eyes, the memories of that dreadful
fense, to the President of the Region, to the May- day will forever be imprinted.
or, to the Authorities and, with particular affec- I came here today in Civitella - one of the
tion, to all the citizens of Civitella and the Mayors. symbolic places of Nazi-Fascist barbarity - to re-
We are here, in Civitella in Val di Chiana, gath- member all the victims of war crimes, massacred
ered to celebrate April 25th - the anniversary of in 1944 on our national territory and also abroad.
the Liberation - eighty years after the terrible and There is no part of Italy - with the excep-
inhuman Nazi-Fascist massacre perpetrated in tion of Sardinia - that has not suffered Nazi-Fas-
this territory on the defenceless population. cist violence against civilians and that has not
As we have heard before from the words of mourned the remains of its brutally murdered
the Mayor, Professoressa Ponzani, from the read- fellow citizens.
ings - and I shall thank Ottavia Piccolo for having The region that hosts us - Tuscany - is among
involved us, with emotion, in the dramatic memo- those that have paid the highest tribute of inno-
ries that she illustrated - and from the extraordi- cent blood, together with Piemonte and Emilia
nary testimony of Ida Balò, the massacres took Romagna.
place, as well as in Civitella, in Cornia, where the The Military Courts and the historians, after a
rage of the soldiers of the infamous Göring Divi- difficult research that lasted decades, have doc-
sion was unleashed in a particularly brutal man- umented so far on our Italian territory five thou-
ner, with rapes and killings of children. sand cruel episodes of massacres, reprisals, ex-
On that same day, not far from here, in San ecutions.
Pancrazio, another massacre took place, where With these barbaric killings, in their deadly
over seventy people were slaughtered. strategy, the Nazi-Fascists were trying to create a
As reported in the trial documents, the mas- scorched earth environment around the partisans
sacres were planned many days in advance, and to protect the German retreat; they were trying to
were carried out through deception and betrayal. establish a terror regime against civilians so that
They waited for Saints Peter and Paul’s feast to they would not join the partisans; they were trying
be certain of raiding a larger number of civilians. to take revenge against people considered inferi-
The tragic numbers of that June 29th, 1944, or both as allies and, after the armistice, traitors.
in these lands, tell us of about 250 people mur- These were very serious war crimes, in con-
dered. Among them were women, elderly people, trast to international laws, military honour and the
priests and more than ten boys and children. The principles of humanity.
youngest, Gloriano Polletti, was just one year old. No military reason or of any other kind, can
Maria Luisa Lammioni was two. be invoked for the killing of hostages and de-
The priest of Civitella, Don Alcide Lazzeri, fenceless prisoners.
and that of San Pancrazio, Don Giuseppe Torelli, The Nazi-Fascists were well aware of this:
tried to offer their lives to save their villagers’, but the corpses of the partisan fighters, captured,
in vain. They too were killed - as we have heard tortured, killed, had to be displayed for days, as
earlier - along with the others. Some hostages, a sinister warning to the population.
STORIA GIUSTIZIA MEMORIA HISTORY JUSTICE MEMORY 151
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