“Slaughtered because they were Italians”. And the controversy breaks out over the Fosse ardeatine – Corriere.it

The President of the Republic was also there yesterday in Rome at the commemoration of the 79th anniversary of the Fosse Ardeatine massacre. Sergio Mattarella paid homage to the 335 victims, killed by the Nazis in retaliation for the partisan attack in via Rasella. The ceremony was attended by the highest authorities of the Republic, including the presidents of the Senate and Chamber, Ignazio La Russa and Lorenzo Fontana. But the controversy flared up over the message sent by the premier, in Brussels for the European Council. “Seventy-nine years ago – writes Giorgia Meloni – 335 Italians were brutally murdered by the Nazi occupation troops in retaliation for the partisan attack in via Rasella (…) 335 innocent Italians massacred just because they were Italian”. And it is on that “just because Italians” that the case breaks out.

Among the first to react Chiara Gribaudo, Pd, close to the secretary Elly Schlein: «The dead of the Fosse ardeatine – he says – were massacred because they were anti-fascists. I’ll refresh your memory and your vocabulary, sir.’ Nicola Fratoianni, of the Italian left, also attacks, asking the premier: «One day or another, will he be able to write that word? Anti-fascist”. From Brussels Meloni returns to the theme: «I defined them as Italians. Why aren’t anti-fascists Italian? I think it’s all-encompassing.” Also from Fratelli d’Italia Riccardo Antoniozzi tries to calm the waters: «The controversy does not honor the anniversary. As all the great historians of the left now say, and as De Felice wrote, the action in via Rasella was not an act of war». Not enough, obviously.

From the M5S Giuseppe Conte speaks of the “abomination of Nazi-fascist violence” while the former Speaker of the Chamber Roberto Fico directly calls into question the “complicities of fascism”. As does the Anpi, the association of partisans, with the president Gianfranco Pagliarulo: the list of people to be killed was “compiled with the complicity of the commissioner Pietro Caruso, the interior minister of the Republic of Salò Guido Buffarini Guidi, the war criminal Pietro Koch, all fascists». And also Francesco Albertelli, president of Anfim, the Association of family members who were victims of the Nazi-fascist massacres: «We are non-partisan, we do not use to comment on the premier’s statements. But history says that the massacre was carried out with the full collaboration of the fascists». Ornella Vanoni also intervenes on the subject: «They weren’t killed just because they were Italians – says the singer – but because they were Italian Jews and Italian partisans. Perhaps Meloni is a little confused ».