Friday, August 26, 2016

Monte Sole, Ghosts in the mountains


Marzabotto just to the south of Bologna is famous for its Etruscan archaeological site. But it is also the famous for another far sadder reason. It was in the hills just above the town that the worst massacre of civilians in Western Europe during World War II took place.

Monte Sole is a mountainous zone that sits between two valleys that are important lines of communication between Bologna and Tuscany. Climbing out of the valleys one enters another world. 
Caprara, Marzabotto, BO
In late September 1944 the people who lived and farmed here as well as a sizable number of refugees who had fled the bombing of the towns in the valley thought that the war would pass them by in this remote area.

Poggiolo, Marzabotto, BO
 But a toxic set of circumstances was coming together that would lead to disaster. The American 5th Army had broken through the Gothic line and was less than 20 kilometres away and was pushing down the valleys towards Bologna. A highly effective band of partisans was operating in the area causing much disruption to vital lines of communication and casualties amongst the German occupiers. General Kesselring had given orders to a unit of the SS; veterans of the brutalities of the Russian front to remove the partisan menace and secure the rear area behind the German front line.

 
Many of the mostly desperately poor farmers in the area were not too keen on the presence of the partisans as under a subtle menace they were often forced supply food and shelter without payment. Some also sensed the danger of having the partisans in their midst.

A certain Major Walter Reder of the SS, fresh from a string of atrocities towards civilians in the Tosco Emilian Apennines was to lead the anti-partisan sweep that also included elements of the Wehrmacht and a few Italian guides.
San Martino, Marzabotto, BO
The area around Monte Sole was encircled and on the 29th of September the sweep began from several directions. The able bodied men fearing deportation to work as slave labourers or worse fled to hide in the thick woods that one finds here leaving the women children and elderly at home thinking that they would not be touched.
San Martino, Marzabotto, BO
The partisan leader “Lupo” (wolf) was surprised in his sleep and he and some of his men were soon killed. Seeing the size of the sweep, the partisans after putting up a fight mostly melted away to safer areas outside the ring to fight another day.

In four days’ house by house, hamlet by hamlet nearly a thousand mostly women, children and old people were slaughtered often with the men hiding in the woods above as witnesses to the killing of their families below.
Cerpiano, Monzumo,BO

Cerpiano, Monzumo,BO
 
I had read the moving and brilliantly written book by Jack Olsen – “Silence on Monte Sole”. so when I arrived to see the most significant area I was aware of the backstory of the places I would see along my walk.

After leaving the car at the visitor centre at "il Poggiolo",  I made for the nearby San Martino Di Caprara. Like most of the other sites, only the foundations remain of the church and other buildings of the hamlet where seventy-seven people were murdered including forty-seven who had taken refuge in the church.
San Martino, Marzabotto, BO

San Martino, Marzabotto, BO

San Martino, Marzabotto, BO
Tombstone for a mother and 7 children. San Martino, Marzabotto, BO
 A stiff climb took me to what remains of the hamlet of Caprara di Sopra. This was the site of another massacre. Forty-four people were herded into a small room few survived the grenades that were hurled into the room.  A total of sixty-two died here.  
Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO

Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO

Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO

Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO

Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO

Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO
The road runs along the hillside to the church of Casaglia. Photographs of the ruined church usually illustrate articles concerning the massacre, but only two people actually died here. The church was full of people hoping the Germans would not violate a church. The people in the church were ordered out and told to make their way to the cemetery just along the road. A couple of people fled across the fields in the confusion and survived. The priest was murdered at the altar. A crippled woman who was unable to walk was the second victim here.
The Church of Casaglia, Marzabotto,Bo

The Church of Casaglia, Marzabotto,Bo
The Church of Casaglia, Marzabotto,Bo

The Church of Casaglia, Marzabotto,Bo


The Church of Casaglia, Marzabotto,Bo
A modern Via Crucis leads to the Cemetery of Casaglia. The descriptions by the survivors five of whom miraculously lived to tell the tale forms the most moving part of Olsen’s book. The victims were lined up against the cemetery chapel and a machine gun set up at child height mowed them down. The survivors were covered with the bodies often of their close relatives. One can still see the pockmarks of the bullets in the walls and a cemetery cross holed by passing bullets. Seventy-one died here. 
Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO

Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO

Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO

Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO

Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO

Bullet holes.Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO

Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto,BO
Cimitero di Casaglia, Marzabotto, BO
The last location on this walk of horror is probably the site of the most shocking and barbaric acts. Cerpiano housed an Oratory with an infant’s school. There were many refugees here. The people including many small children were herded into the ridiculously small chapel. Again the carnage was caused by hand grenades tossed into the nave.  The troops held an all night party in the adjoining buildings getting drunk on the wine they found in the cellars. Now and again a soldier would pass the church and put a bullet into anybody who was found to be still alive. Forty-four were killed. Two children and a teacher survived.  

Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO

Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO


Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO

Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO

Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO


Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO

Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO

Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO

Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO


Cerpiano, Monzuno, BO
I visited just a fraction of the area. The horrors of the places I visited were repeated until the 5th of October more or less in the same way and with the same results over the whole area.


Cerpiano, Monzumo, BO
Reader’s troops were often not just content to simply kill. The corpses of pregnant women were opened to revel the foetus, the body of boy was impaled on a pole and left in a field like a scarecrow, just to cite a couple of examples.


Caprara di Sopra, Marzabotto, BO
The last place that I visited was the mausoleum in Marzabotto down in the valley with the panels of photographs of the victims to remind us that these were people and not numbers.

Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO

Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO


Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO
Water Rader was one of the very few to be brought to justice for war crimes in Italy was given life imprisonment in 1951.

Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO
  
But we can join a disturbing series of dots that bring us to present day European politics.

Under pressure from Austria, the Government under Bettino Craxi pardoned Rader and he was deported to Austria. There he was personally met at the airport by the Austrian Minister of Defense, a certain Friedhelm Frischenschlager.

A wealthy landowning member of the Austrian Freedom Party gave him material support.

 Frischenschlager, was at the time a member of the Austrian Freedom Party. He is the son of a Nazi party member. He embarrassed the Government of the time by appearing without explanation at an SS memorial ceremony in Salzburg.

He later served as a deputy in the European Parliament and was Director of the department of democratization of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo (2001-2003), and Secretary General of the Union of European Federalists, Brussels (UEF).  

The Freedom party, which still has neo Nazi sympathies came close and may still win the rerun of the Austrian presidential election. Interesting times for Europe. 
Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO

Sacrario di Marzabotto, BO
Italy does not come out too well either. The Italian Communist party was quick to distort the story for their own ends.

Although Lupo’s band of partisans called themselves the “Red Star Brigade”, Lupo and his followers were decidedly not Communists. A rhetorical version of events came to be accepted almost as the truth with tales of a heroic resistance of the partisans to the last man and the subsequent martyrdom of the inhabitants.

The decedents of the PCI after the merger with leftist elements of the church have set up a happy clappy “Peace School” near san Martino to be more in keeping with the times. The president in a typically Italian jobs for the boy’s scenario is the brother of an ex-Prime Minister.

We can see a typical initiative of the “Peace School” mentality at San Martino. Part of the ruins have been fouled with large white “artistic” plastic tears attached chicken wire spread over the ruins. I presume it is an artistic installation.   

The Catholic church also has a strong but quiet presence in the area with a couple of religious communities. One of the founders of the Christian Democrats is buried in the cemetery at Casaglia. It must be remembered that three priests were murdered here.

San Martino, Marzabotto. 3 priests were murdered.

Crucifixes and Alters abound in the ruins.
 
The fact that there was little interest on the part of the Italians in calling to account the authors of this and many other of the war crimes committed in 1944/5 was due to the fact that the Italians feared the Yugoslavs and Greeks would ask in turn for the extradition of Italians implicated in war crimes there. 

Similar methods as those used by the Germans in Northern Italy had been used by the Italians on the other side of the Adriatic.

 Whilst the victims were remembered with much rhetoric by the “Authorities” a cynical silence prevailed on the judicial front until a few years ago when it was felt safe and expedient to call for the prosecution of the perpetrators, most of whom had already passed away.

The German courts also helped to prolong the process to allow natural justice to prevail.


Cerpiano, Monzumo, BO
The state of the ruins we see today is misleading. The Germans had limited themselves to burning the buildings. The front line of the American advance eventually came to beneath Monte Sole and the area became bloody battlefield in the quest to take the mountain. The area was heavily shelled and bombed by the Allies and the buildings in the area were reduced mostly to the state we see today.  More of the surviving population were killed by American shells.  

The area today is sparsely populated and is now a regional nature reserve.