Page 85 - NONOSTANTE IL LUNGO TEMPO TRASCORSO…Le stragi nazifasciste nella guerra di liberazione 1943–1945

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Among them, despite the presence of adults, eliminate because they could not evacuate the vil-
we find shocking numbers for what concerns chil- lages, women to rape, even infants and foetuses to
dren/youngsters (0-16) and elderly people (over use as horrific shooting targets in lagers, in Vinca
55): respectively, 1,440 and 2,509 victims. We also and in other places.
know that we are underestimating these numbers: All of this happened from the southern to the
in most cases, we are just expressing a plausible northern regions of Italy, in big cities and in small
hypothesis, because there is no certainty when it and isolated villages, indiscriminately, without any
comes to calculating the presence of living people strategic reason, for a precise criminal plan of
before the massacres. We also cannot say precise- nazi Germans - Wehrmacht and SS - and fascist
ly how many victims died during these episodes Italians; the latter sometimes acted autonomously
because their corpses were burnt, blown up, sunk, and very often as guides, collaborators and willing
and eliminated in many different ways. The horror supporters of the nazis.
applied to a non-existing war strategy but instead As I said before, their victims were mostly
to mass slaughtering was dreadful. harmless civilians. Among them we should also
This phenomenon concerned all the Italian mention the survivors who received neither justice
territories occupied by Germans and fascists. The nor support from the State for decades; the same
civilians though were not the only victims: even State which did not honour the memory but instead
the unarmed partisans, the anti-fascists who op- hid, concealed, forbad any investigation, ignored
posed the Germans and Mussolini’s Republican and forgot the victims, in the name of a “superior”
militia with politics and civil Resistance, the nu- motivation that has nothing to do with justice, but
merous soldiers (both professionals and recalled rather denies it. The survivors were condemned
to duty), Jews, priests and believers, the former to unspoken and private grief, which could not be
war prisoners in Italian hands. The definition of shared or demanded. Memory was thus deeply af-
“war against civilians”, coined in the past years by fected: it only looked for visible scapegoats, be-
Paolo Pezzino and Michele Battini to appropriately cause nothing else was left. Whole communities
describe the strategy to eliminate whatsoever ob- split, and the denied justice of the post-war peri-
stacle for nazifascists, has nowadays expanded to od was added to war disgraces. When justice was
“all” the harmless people killed in nazi/nazifascist/ performed, it was a belated and limited one, be-
fascist massacres, committed by the perpetrators cause it did not cover all the occupied territories
following a precise plan of “slaughter policy”. The and almost no one was imprisoned.
civilians became victims of this policy because However, the trials performed in the early
they were wrongly considered supporters of the 2000s have been very important. Many surviving
Resistance, even when they were too young to victims finally found support from the State, they
imagine it or too old and weak to fight for it. For could tell what they had witnessed, how their life
the executioners they often represented a handy was before the massacre and what has never been
target, also because killing them would have been the same after the event. They described how their
easier and less dangerous compared to the ur- mothers’ bodies protected them, they talked about
ban warfare against partisans; a type of war the all the corpses they could not bury, the school
nazists and fascists were not prepared for, while they could not finish, the lands they were forced to
being instead the perfect alternative for the par- abandon forever because there was no living thing
tisan Units. The civilians, and more in general the left except for them. With these trials, memory
harmless people were thus “punished” because of started to make peace with history: a peace which
the Resistance, something they “supported” and should not be taken for granted, because we do
were “guilty” for. They also turned into urban and not know if we will be able to achieve this goal. The
suburban elements to keep under control in order trials, though, identified the executioners, so now
to guarantee supplies for the battlefronts, hostag- there is no need to look for scapegoats anymore.
es to sacrifice ruthlessly, “examples” used to make The many affected places could finally be part of a
the opponents surrender, limitless labour force, State and a story that belongs to everyone. How-
properties to loot and plunder, disabled people to ever, this is just a mere desire for the future.

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