You have with the Survivors laughed and cried. 16 young Germans and Italians are to the 75. Anniversary of the SS massacre in the mountain village of Sant travelled’Anna di Stazzema to the Campo della Pace in Tuscany.
At first glance, it looks like a holiday in Italy: Young people between 17 and 26 Hiking in Tuscany by the Apuan Alps, talk, laugh. But you have to run in the footsteps of German soldiers and Italian war refugees over steep mountain paths, ask what happened in the Second world war, discuss in German, Italian and English, about democracy and dictatorship, history and memory. Again and again you are talking about the right-wing populism in Germany and Italy, the Worry.
From the forests of Sant’Anna di Stazzema, the tower of the Ossariums, the memorial’s towers, where the dead are buried
“In the evening all the men were weeping”
In the center of their travel to the place of one of the worst German war crimes in Western Europe: the remote mountain village of Sant’anna di Stazzema, where German soldiers were allegedly partisan combat and on 12. August 1944, up to 560 people killed: babies and their mothers, school children, pregnant women, grandparents.
The men hid in the woods because they thought they were to be deported to work assignments, their families are safe. When they came back, they found burning houses and corpses. “In the evening all the men were crying,” says Siria Pardini (83) that at the time, lost her mother and two sisters.
In the Campo della Pace, the peace camp, which is funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg and the German Federal foreign office, the 16 participants of the Survivors, the the 12. August 1944, as the children have experienced. Enrico Pieri (85) runs on the first evening, about tight switchbacks in the mountain village of Pruno, where the group is located, to welcome each and every person. Of him, the invitation comes: “Come to Sant’Anna”. Young people should understand, from what time the Europe of today is caused, to fight for a more human Europe.
Two days later, the group meets him in Pietrasanta, where a part of the German soldiers was broken on 12.8.1944 at three in the morning to Sant’Anna. Enrico Pieri gives us all a Hand. The heat he exudes, strength, and warmth. He was thankful for the trip to Sant’Anna, the village with widely scattered groups of houses on 660 meters of altitude, the 1944 was just over the steep paths to reach. His village, he says, “had to do with the war, nothing.” The German soldiers brought death to Sant’anna, where he met the villagers, as well as the many refugees from the conflict areas of the Region.
Enrico Pieri lost ten years of his whole family. He was hiding when the soldiers shot his parents, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, far more than 20 related: “In that Moment, I had not noticed that I was the only one that was left.”
“Come to Sant’Anna” – the invitation of the Survivor Enrico Pieri is
The sadness of that time reflected in his eyes and in those of his son Massimo, who accompanied him. The father has spoken with him directly about his traumatic experience, but he felt the burden, he says. Soon, however, flashes in the case of Enrico Pieri back down to his fighting spirit. Two years after the massacre, the Italians voted after the war, whether the country is a monarchy or a Republic should be: “that was The first poster that I installed 12 years: Selects the Republic!”
“Because you can reach with a hatred of anything”
In the 1970s, he sent his son in Switzerland, to a German-speaking school, “because one can achieve with hatred, nothing, only love”. Italian migrant workers such as he were discriminated against and been treated “as it is today, immigrant Africans”. All his hopes, he has set on Europe. “You have so much,” he says passionately to the young people from the peace camp, “much more than we had ever dared to dream. It is important that you work with to keep or improve yet!” His concern he shares with his friend, Enio Mancini. The family survived only because a soldier was run: “What happens here in Italy, it hurts me physically, that hatred will be sown, while in the Mediterranean, people are drowning.”
Petra assisted, international experience in the work of memory, interprets the encounters and cross-links the peace camp with people from the Region. Since 2012, she has close contact with the Survivors of Sant’anna. From the very first meeting she had the idea to bring young people to you. The peace camp participants, they are the words of Italian Holocaust Survivor Liliana Segre on the way. This warns of the slow loss of democracy through indifference: “pay attention to the pain of others.”
Plaque with photos of the 12. August 1944, killed children and young people that you could identify
“We’re here, the Germans”
“All of these children,” says Clara in the Museum in Sant’anna di Stazzema. Long as she stands in front of the panel with the photos of the victims up to the age of 16. Like many others she knew in front of the peace camp, nothing about Sant’anna di Stazzema, the German war crimes in Italy: “In hindsight, this is terrifying.” The student is touched by the encounters with the Survivors, Enrico Pieri, the sisters Siria and Adele Pardini, who had to climb as a child over her dead mother, and Enio Mancini, who founded the Museum and a long time has passed: “they are all so incredibly positive, have opened up to talk with us about it. You have every reason to hold a grudge.”
Whenever there is talk of “the Germans” think you, “we’re here for the Germans,” even if you feel that the perpetrators in no way affiliated to. You have the impression that the experience in the peace camp to change, she says. You want to use in the future to strengthen the fight against right-wing populism.
They were dragged from the Church, shot and burned – on 12.8.1944 over 100 people have died in this place far
After the first visit to Sant’Anna and the conversation with Enio Mancini, the way leads steeply uphill over a Pass above the Sant’Anna. Clara is glad “to run the pressure of the soul”. Some of them are silent, many use the opportunity to share about the heard, the unheard-of cruelty of the German soldiers that murdered here 75 years ago. “You were younger than me,” says the 24-year-old math Student, Dominik. The brutality of the war crimes he can be hard to grasp: “You think you have arrived at the abyss and then it goes even deeper than that.”
Encounter with the experiences of the Survivors in the Museum of Sant’anna di Stazzema
German word of the day: responsibility
Also Lorenzo from Lucca is very impressed by the exchange with the Survivors, of their strength, to speak in spite of their pain, with young people from Italy and Germany, he says: “If we understand that, if we empathize with your feelings, should it not be possible to repeat what happened in the past.” Lorenzo was recently in the concentration camp memorial at Auschwitz. As he has passed on these experiences, he would like to do it also with the experience from the Campo della Pace. In addition to the content of the work is also time for the German-but-Italian exchange of games, food, everyday life, customs, and mutual language lessons. “Responsibility is my German word of the day,” says Lorenzo.
After the visit to the Museum in Sant’Anna, the participants write in the guestbook: “Campo della Pace/peace camp. Thank you for this reminder. For us and for always incomprehensible.” Difficult to conceive and bear the fact that the war crimes for which the perpetrator had no legal consequences for the Survivors. Long had laid the files on German war crimes in the Rome aside – a lot of talk from the “Cabinet of shame”. With a 60-year delay of ten defendants were convicted in three instances by law to life imprisonment.
Book with the memories Enio Mancini’s – with the historical facts and the legal handling of the massacre
But Germany is not delivered to the judgment. It gave its own investigation in Stuttgart, but no process. From indignation and shame, the Stuttgart-based Initiative was the “instigator” contact to Sant’Anna. From these contacts developed the idea for the peace camp. Enio Mancini said today: “It hurts me very much that this German state has said lawyer, he had to stop the procedure, since the indication of cruelty is not given and, therefore, everything is time-barred.”
In a later process, a Karlsruhe-based court ruled for the accused from Hamburg, a conviction for murder is quite likely. However, a certificate of permanent process inability to have ended any Chance of a process and judgement. The perpetrators were able to live as respectable citizens and die.
The message to the 75. Anniversary
Enio Mancini says that what he and the other Survivors required Anna: “Never again Sant'”. This is the strongest message for a place like this, “where humanity was kicked with feet”. All countries should work together: “Never again Sant’Anna. Never again Hiroshima. Peace, Peace, Peace!”
“No hate and no destruction more” – Dominik, Julia and Dahlia have written a song for the memorial service in Sant’anna di Stazzema
Dominik, Julia, and Daliah have for the silent night memorial celebration of the 12. August a private song composed and texted: “Mai Piu Sant’Anne” – never again to Sant’anna. “We talked, laughed and we cried,” it says, “we have grown. It is a world to which we belong, let the hatred behind you.” The song emphasizes the strength of Enrico Pieri, thanks to the Pardini-sisters, the flowers for the commemoration picked, and the enthusiastic Appeals of Enio Mancini. The conversation with him flowed into the chorus. As he assess the chances for peace in the world, had asked him about the young people. “It is a utopia,” he answered, “you must believe”.