Somos en escrito The Latino Literary Online Magazine
Follow us on Twitter @Somosenescrito
 |
| A composite photo of the men shot by Nazis on June 29, 1944 in the Italian village of San Pancrazio |
To reinforce the memory of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in WWII, and make it clear that opposing the racism that spawns the white nationalist cult is righteous and necessary, we re-publish here the personal recollection by the author of a visit on June 29, 2010, to a village in Italy where Nazi forces killed every adult male in reprisal against the Italian Resistance. White nationalism is what Adolf Hitler sought to impose over the world; it is a cancer that must be eradicated. --Editor's Note
This feature first appeared in Somos en escrito on August 9, 2011.
By Armando Rendón
On June 29, 1944, in the Tuscany region of Italy, in a village settled high above the Valdambra Valley, where farming families had lived peacefully for generations amid rustic stone buildings, disaster struck.
For several weeks, Allied Forces had been clawing up the great rugged terrain of the boot called Italy, pushing before them Nazi battalions committed to making the American and British troops pay dearly for every step.
Unfortunately for the folk along the path, the beasts of war did not just brush past them; they exacted a terrible price from them as well. As Nazi units sought footholds to resist Allied troops, partisans of an Italian Resistance were harrying them from the rear.
In the region around the mountain village called San Pancrazio, resistance fighters had killed a handful of Germans. The Hermann Göring Battalion somehow found their way up the steep and winding roads to San Pancrazio and probably on some whim decided to take vengeance on the men of the village.
The Nazi troops gathered up all the adult men they could find (only a few managed to hide or escape to the woods below) and drove them into a stone farmhouse on the main plaza of the town. As the few remaining witnesses attest, rifle shots began to sound inside the building.
The 58 men were shot in the neck and as the evidence showed later, their bodies had been doused in gasoline and set aflame. The farmhouse sent flames shooting up through the night as Nazi vengeance took its toll.
All of this I learned first-hand when my wife, Helen, and I visited friends who live a short drive from San Pancrazio, which lies off a two-lane country road southeast of their home in Montevarchi. Our friends, Beppe Mangione and Gia Amella, own a production company that specializes in non-fiction programs which have aired on cable networks and public television here in the U.S. and worldwide.
They had alerted us that they would be spending the evening of June 29th videotaping the annual commemoration of the massacre and asked whether we’d like to accompany them. We didn’t hesitate in accepting their invitation: not only were we going to brush up against an event that had changed history but possibly take part in retaining its importance alive.
I’d had a personal stake in a way in what happened in WWII. As a boy growing up in San Antonio, I knew that my grandmother had seen four of her sons enter the service, two into the Army, the third into the Navy and the fourth into the Tank Corps. Four stars had decorated her front window. Imagine the anguish of a mother watching her children going off to war that she might not see return. I’d come to understand how my grandmother must have felt talking to her after I had become a father myself, seeing the photos of my uncles in their uniforms displayed on chest of drawers and albums around her house. In a way I had not expected, the people of this small Tuscany village that I’d never heard of opened ajar another door into a vast ocean of grief and heartache.
We left about 6:30 p.m. with Beppe driving, taking the main road southeast out of Montevarchi, then onto narrower roads down through Levane, Bucine, the main township in the area, Pogi and then just past Capannole, Beppe took a turnoff to the left.
San Pancrazio is not visible from the valley below: one has to drive up a curving road that climbs steeply for a couple miles through woods, orchards and vineyards, hardly an easy place to find today and yet, on the same date, June 29, 66 years ago, German troops, tanks and armored vehicles came across this tiny village. Had they purposefully sought out the town, or simply happened upon it in their retreat?
Nazi officers must have either gotten orders or decided on their own to exact reprisals on the town for the actions of the Italian resistance, which until then I never knew existed. Among the men shot dead that day, several were members of the same family, e.g., nine men of the Panzieri family died; five of the Nannini family.
According to an Italian website, “A total of 203 people were shot dead in the towns of Civitella, Cornia and San Pancrazio on June 29, 1944, in retaliation for the murder of three German soldiers by Italian partisans.”
Despite the underlying sadness of the occasion, the townspeople treated everyone to a hearty and tasty buffet prepared by the local families; we heard speeches, all in Italian, and then attended a Mass in a stuccoed space next to the death rooms. On one wall, a large piece of Plexiglas preserved pock marks gouged into it by stray bullets.
 |
Banners and wreath at front of procession around San Pancrazio, June 29, 2010 |
A tiny museum displays photos and some artifacts of the massacre. I snapped a photo of a montage on one wall showing photos of all the murdered men, as well as photos of other room interiors.
Afterwards, local children sang songs, recited the names of each victim, and then the whole town took part in a candlelight procession around the village; it’s so small that the walk took about 20 minutes.
The folk of San Pancrazio have been commemorating the events of June 29, 1944, every year since then. This day a couple representatives of other towns in Europe where similar atrocities occurred were in attendance. My wife and I were the only other visitors from outside of Italy.
Beppe and Gia taped more than an hour of scenes, which they have combined with other footage and interviews to produce a documentary for CNN International that will air starting August 13, 2011. The filmmaker couple caught me by surprise and started asking me to comment on tape about what I had seen that evening.
I had just been looking out toward the west from a small grassy knoll next to the very building where the atrocity had taken place. The sun would soon be setting; colors were going all ablaze above the valley. Nearby to my left was where the gravel road made one more sharp turn before leveling off onto the town plaza.
I spoke to the camera and imagined out loud that after hearing cars chittering up the barely paved road, how the sound of approaching tanks and other war vehicles must have startled and then frightened the villagers. They had no place to run, and at first must have prayed simply to be ignored as the troops swept along to escape the allied charge.
But then the roundup of men began.
The human cost of war is impossible to assess; no less the sacrifice that even the most humble of people add to the cost, sometimes by chance.
The commemoration of the massacre at the village of San Pancrazio inspired two related insights in my mind:
We rightly honor and recall with pride the sacrifice of so many of our American men and women in World War II. But there is a complementary side to their triumph over fear and anguish going into battle.
We have to recall the mothers and fathers who stayed at home, and waited, and prayed; their spirit kept them hopeful and when they learned of a lost son they endured.
The men of San Pancrazio, among all the millions who were swallowed up by that war, are justly remembered by the families and friends who survived—they should be part of the legacy we commemorate of those times.
Not enough is known worldwide about San Pancrazio, but it is vital that we remember the 58 men and boys who died in those lower rooms of the stone farmhouse, which is now their monument.
In a very real sense, the people of San Pancrazio inspired me not only to revere the sacrifice of these their dead, but to honor them by recommitting myself forever to oppose war as an option in the affairs of mankind.
Armando Rendón is editor of Somos en escrito magazine.
World’s Untold Stories: Terror in Tuscany: Secret Massacres of WWII airs on CNN Internat ional at the following times:
Sat urday, August 13, 2011, at 9:00 a.m. ET and 4:00 p.m. ET. Rebroadcasts will air on Sunday and Tuesday, plus other times over the next few weeks.
The documentary will be viewable online on the CNN.com/WUS website beginning Wednesday, August 17. Check for local listings.
More background information will be available, including an interview of the Somos editor, Armando, and his wife, Helen, on the following link:
http://www.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/untoldstories/
The documentary will be viewable online on the CNN.com/WUS website beginning Wednesday, August 17. Check for local listings.
More background information will be available, including an interview of the Somos editor, Armando, and his wife, Helen, on the following link:
http://www.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/untoldstories/
Press Release From CNN, August 8, 2011
CNN'S 'WORLD UNTOLD STORIES' DOCUMENTARY STRAND AIRS FORGOTTEN CHAPTER OF WWII ATROCITIES IN ITALY
Nazi at rocities committed against Italian civilians during World War II are the focus of a new documentary that explores the war’s devastat ing impact on one rural community in Tuscany at h.
‘Terror in Tuscany: Secret Massacres of WWII’ will premiere on CNN Internat ional as part of its Award winning documentary strand “World’s Untold Stories” on 13 August, 2011. This programme is a collaborat ion between Modio Media, LLC and CNN Internat ional.
Sharing their story with a worldwide audience for the first time, residents of San Pancrazio, a mountaintop hamlet situat ed 50 kilometers south of Florence 29 June, 1944 when German soldiers stormed their village at daybreak, separat ed the men from their families and shot them at close range, killing 73. Before retreat ing, they destroyed the village. By war’s end, the Nazis’ campaign of terror would claim an estimat ed 15,000- 20,000 Italian civilians, including women, children and the elderly.
Vividly told through rare historical footage, cherished family photographs, and evocat ive landscapes of the Tuscan countryside, the programme centers on the stories of three survivors who lost many family members in the tragedy yet, bolstered by a fierce self-reliance, reconstructed their lives. 92-year-old Goffredo Cinelli is one of the oldest remaining survivors. A war veteran, he describes life under fascism and the chaos that ensued following the collapse of Mussolini’s regime. Gabriella Panzieri, a young girl at the time, recalls the flames rising above her village as she wat ched helplessly from her hiding place. And Enzo Panzieri tells us about San Pancrazio’s women--widowed and with few resources--whom he credits with rebuilding the town.
The documentary also feat ures interviews with noted author and historian Dr. Paolo Pezzino, Professor of Contemporary History, University of Pisa at the University of Pisa at rocities in Tuscany Township of Bucine at or, Township of Bucine Italy NARA Washington
For more informat ion, please contact: Joel Brown, Senior Press Officer
CNN Europe , Middle East & Africa
Tel: + 44 20 7693 0967
To view a clip, press Control and click on the link below, then click on the Go to link notice.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2011/08/04/wus.terror.in.tuscany.cnn/