Page 43 - NONOSTANTE IL LUNGO TEMPO TRASCORSO…Le stragi nazifasciste nella guerra di liberazione 1943–1945

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acquitted. They acted according to the so-cal- Priebke - extradited from Argentina - and Mi-
led “boomerang effect”, like diplomat Pietro sha Seifert, a Ukrainian born guardian at Gries
Quaroni said: they feared the same trials would Camp in Bolzano, extradited from Canada; many
have been performed against Italian war crimi- of them died before the sentence, while others
nals for the massacres committed in Yugoslavia were protected by Germany, which didn’t exe-
and Greece between 1941 and 1943. In the end, cute the arrest warrant. Unfortunately, justice
only two famous war criminals remained in the started to function again too late, only at the
Italian prisons, that is to say SS Officer Herbert end of the Cold War, because of the diploma-
Kappler, sentenced to life prison for the Ardea- tic relations between Italy and the Federal Re-
tine Caves massacre, and SS Officer Walter Re- public of Germany. Nevertheless, Dr. De Paolis’
der, sentenced for the massacre in Monte Sole. deeds had a great resonance, both judicially and
All those Germans who ordered the executions ethically.
of Italian soldiers in Rhodes, including General A principle was declared: the one concer-
Otto Wagener, sentenced in Rome in 1948, were ning the criminal liability for imprescriptible war
freed and pardoned after a few years in order to crimes, regardless of rank and roles. It is also
re-establish diplomatic relations between Italy considered guilty the soldier who obeys the or-
and Germany. ders, even when they are manifestly criminal.
What characterised the Italian Courts was This moral duty led Dr. De Paolis to prepare a
not just the minimal effect of their proceedings case in 2012 against the Italian soldiers who, in
(1947-1951), but also the belated recovery of ju- February 1943 in Domenikon (a Greek village),
stice in the ‘90s after the trial against the SS slaughtered 140 innocent civilians, in retaliation
Captain Erich Priebke; in addition, there was for a partisan attack. The investigations identi-
also the discovery, under unclear circumstan- fied 11 Italian soldiers, but they could not be sen-
ces, of the so-called “closet of shame” where al- tenced because they were all dead.
most 700 files concerning the results of investi- Another relevant aspect of Dr. De Paolis’ le-
gations on nazifascist crimes had been illegally gal action was the fact that he collaborated with
dismissed by the Military Public Prosecutor in consulting historians, involving also scholars
1960. Their discovery in 1994, and forwarding to such as Paolo Pezzino, Carlo Gentile and Isabel-
the Military Courts in charge, caused the restart la Insolvibile. He also worked with the victims’
of investigations and proceedings, after almost families. The sentences were not only a sign
fifty years. The exhibition follows with great that justice was operating properly, but they
precision all these phases, from the beginning also had the function to present an historically
(5 trials between 1996 and 1999) to the turning accurate version of the episodes (for example
point in 2002 thanks to Military Public Prosecu- by rejecting the idea that Partisans were liable
tor Marco De Paolis, first in La Spezia and then for the massacres). They also offered a sort of
in Verona and Rome. Dr. De Paolis, who is the comfort to the communities and the survivors,
curator of the exhibition, prepared more than who were children at that time, and were asked
450 cases for war crimes, and performed 17 to witness.
trials concerning the main German massacres, All of this brought back to memory the nazi-
including Kefalonia (for which no one had been fascist crimes, and transformed them into a fun-
condemned yet), imposing 57 life sentences in damental page of national history. Dr. Marco De
first degree of judgement. Paolis deserves special credit for what he has
No one served their sentence, except for done so far.

STORIA GIUSTIZIA MEMORIA HISTORY JUSTICE MEMORY 43

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