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Ardeatine massacre | |
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Location | Outside Rome, Italy |
Date | 24 March 1944 |
Deaths | 335 |
Victims | Italian political prisoners and civilians |
Assailants | Albert Kesselring Herbert Kappler Erich Priebke Karl Hass Kurt Mälzer Eberhard von Mackensen Pietro Caruso Unnamed SS Unnamed SD Unnamed Gestapo |
Motive | Reprisal 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]