Ardeatine massacre

Ardeatine massacre
Entry to caves in the Fosse Ardeatine Monument
LocationOutside Rome, Italy
Date24 March 1944
Deaths335
VictimsItalian political prisoners and civilians
AssailantsAlbert Kesselring
Herbert Kappler
Erich Priebke
Karl Hass
Kurt Mälzer
Eberhard von Mackensen
Pietro Caruso
Unnamed SS
Unnamed SD
Unnamed Gestapo
MotiveReprisal for Via Rasella attack by Italian partisans

The Ardeatine massacre, or Fosse Ardeatine massacre (Italian: Eccidio delle Fosse Ardeatine), was a mass killing of 335 civilians and political prisoners carried out in Rome on 24 March 1944 by German occupation troops during the Second World War as a reprisal for the Via Rasella attack in central Rome against the SS Police Regiment Bozen the previous day.

Subsequently, the Ardeatine Caves site (Fosse Ardeatine)[1] was declared a Memorial Cemetery and National Monument open daily to visitors. Every year, on the anniversary of the slaughter and in the presence of the senior officials of the Italian Republic, a solemn state commemoration is held at the monument in honour of the fallen. Each year, 335 names are called out, a simple roll call of the dead, to reinforce that 335 discrete individuals symbolise a collective entity.[2]

  1. ^ Fosse (plural of fossa – "ditch"), is the Italian word used for "mass gravesite".
  2. ^ Portelli 2003.[page needed]