80 years ago, the Nazis shot 335 civilians in the Ardeatine Caves in Rome. The victims of the massacre were remembered at a ceremony in Rome on the anniversary. Minister of State for Culture Roth spoke of a “monstrous crime”.
Italy commemorated a massacre by German occupying troops in the Second World War with a commemoration ceremony. Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth also took part in the event in Rome. The Green Party politician called the shooting of hundreds of Italian civilians 80 years ago a “monstrous crime.”
The massacre in the Ardeatine Caves shows the full cruelty and brutality of Nazi Germany’s occupation in Italy, said Roth. She reiterated that Germany is aware of its historical responsibility towards Italy and Europe. “There can be no final line. We have to and want to remember,” said Roth.
“One of the most painful wounds”
Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also commented on the commemoration. She called the massacre “one of the most painful wounds inflicted on our national community” in a written statement. Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party emerged from the post-fascist movement.
After the memorial service, Roth visited the Jewish quarter in Rome. She laid a wreath in the former ghetto and commemorated the people who were captured by the National Socialists in 1943 and then deported.
massacre as Retaliation
A total of 335 men were shot in the Ardeatine Caves in the south of Rome on March 24, 1944 – in retaliation for an attack by Italian partisans in which 33 members of an SS police regiment had been killed in the city center the day before.
The massacre was one of the worst war crimes committed by German troops on Italian soil. At the start of the war in 1939, Italy was allied with Hitler’s Germany under the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. After its fall in July 1943, it was partially occupied by German troops. Many partisans resisted. The capital Rome was liberated by the Allies in June 1944.
There is now a mausoleum at the site of the massacre, which in Italy is considered a symbol of the atrocities of the German occupation.