Monument for Italian Partisans

Grey River Argus, 24 March 1949, Page 3

Monument for Italian Partisans

I From a Reuter Correspondent in Rome] The bodies of 335 Italians shot b} German tommy-gunners in the Ardent ine Caves live years ago are to oe buried soon in a mausoleum buili near the scene of the massacre.. The mausoleum and monument will be inaugurated on March 24 —the anniversary of the day in 1944 when German police took Italian political, military and Jewish prisoners Item the Regina Coeli prison in Rome. and shot them in the darkness of the caves near the Appian Way. The shooting was carried out on orders from Hitler in reprisal for a partisan bomb attack in the centre ot Rome in which. 32 German military police were killed. For nearly five years now the bodies in plain wooden coffins decorated with flowers and photographs have l"in side bv side along the labyrith oi tunnelled caves reminiscent: of the catacombs. During these years thousands of pilgrims have peered, through the caves to pray by the coffins or to light a candle at one or more of the little altars now built into the walls Thirteen of the dead have never been indcntilied. The remainder include generals, naval officers. Jewish, boys, professors and partisar s—men from every walk of Roman liic bour.ii by the common link of antl-Fascisnr A big crowd is expected to at l end tne unveiling of the mausolc_ u anc monument. .