- The abbot's memoir is referred to in Enrico Biagini, Civitella, un castello, un paese, un martirio (Arezzo, 1981). The assistance of Dr. Lapo Melani, director of the Biblioteca comunale di Arezzo was indispensable to completing this essay.
- These surmises, like other questions about the immediate causes of the massacre, bear further investigation: in the SS archives, in the Italian national government archives, in Allied sources, and through local histories. On Italian sources, see Augusto Antoniella, “Fonti per la storia aretina dal fascismo al Dopoguerra conservate nell'Archivio di Stato di Arezzo,” in Ivan Tognarini, ed., Guerra di sterminio e resistenza. La provincia di Arezzo 1943-1944 (Naples: ESI, 1990), pp. 327–336. On the German archives, see Enzo Droandi, “La guerra nell'Aretino nel Kriegstagebuch della 10ma Armata Germanica, 15 Giugno-2 ottobre, 1944,” La battaglia per Arezzo, 4–20 luglio 1944: Atti e memorie dell 'Academia Petrarca Vol XLXI, 1983–1984 (Arezzo: Landi, 1984).
- On Wehrmacht methods in the USSR, see Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 3 vols., revised ed. (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985); and more specifically Arno J. Mayer: Why Did the Heavens not Darken?: The “Final Solution” in History (New York: Pantheon, 1988), pp. 234–279. These English-language analyses draw on detailed reconstructions in Helmut Krausnick and Hans Heinrich Wilhelm, Die Truppen des Weltanschauungskrieges Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitpolizei und SD. 1938–1942, (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1981); and Bernd Wegner, Hitler's Politische Soldaten: Die Waffen SS, 1933–1945 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoeningh, 1990, 4th ed.).
- George H. Stein, The Waffen SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966, 1990), which refers to: Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe 1933–1945 (New York: Beechurst Press, 1953), see also Gerald Reitlinger, The SS, Alibi of a Nation 1922–1945 (London: Heinemann, 1956).
- This information is contained in Romano Bilenchi's own preface to essays by him, Cronaca degli anni neri (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1984), which also republished the women's testimonies.
- On this, see Victoria de Grazia's afterword to Vasco Pratolini, Tale of Poor Lovers (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1989).
- Guido Piovene, “L'Église Catholique et le fascisme,” Les Temps modernes, August-September 1947 at 222–235; Alberto Moravia, “Un Déluge de larmes,” Id. at 279–285.
- Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins (Cleveland and New York: The World Publishing Company, 1956), p. 246.
- Luciano Gambassini, “La resistenza aretina vista da un medico condotto,” in Antonio Curina, Fuochi sui monti dell' Appennino toscano (Arezzo, 1957), pp. 307–321.
- Vasco Caroti, “Lo scontro nel dopolavoro di Civitella,” in Edoardo Succhielli, La Resistenza net versanti tra l'Arno e la Chiana (Arezzo, 1979), pp. 152–153 [translation by the authors].
- The morning of June 29th I got up to go to Holy Mass. As soon as I left the house, I heard that the Germans were there. I continued toward the church thinking that it was troops in retreat. Then hearing some shots, I wanted to leave town. But by then it was impossible because the German barbarians had shut the gates of the town and it was no longer possible to escape. I shut myself in the house with my wife, four daughters, mother, brother, and sister. We exchanged a few terrified words. Outside there were shouts, and explosions of rifles, machine guns, and hand grenades. Suddenly, there was a violent banging on the door and, at that, I was more frightened then ever. I looked at my daughters and wife and I told them to open the door. As soon as the door was open, I heard “Out,” I grasped the two girls closest to me and started to climb the stairs. I hadn't had time to reach the top before they brutally grabbed me by the arm and conducted me to the middle of the town square along with the priest's brother and some other compatriots. There, next to those beasts, we glanced at each other, our feces convulsed, thinking that if our papers were in order they would set us free. They searched us, they took our money, and they held us in the square to await the hour of doom. We saw the houses in flames, the women running to leave the town, we heard the screams of the girls calling “Daddy,” the priest calling out, “Save my people who are innocent.” But there was nothing to be done. The cruel hearts of those barbarians were unmoved. In the meantime, they started to line us up five by five to die. The priest, seeing that there was nothing more to be done, made a request to bless us parishioners for the last time and this was granted. With his hand, he blessed all, and we crossed ourselves and prepared to die. In the meantime, the lines moved up. I saw my fellows fall to the ground, and I thought, “Now it is my turn.” I heard shouts, crying out for wives and children, Finally, the fire hit me. I threw myself to the ground, I felt the wound wasn't mortal and I was still alive. I felt the drops of blood of other dead fall on me. Many, as soon as they were killed, were carried into the doorways of the houses where they were burnt. I realized that I too would meet that end and summoning up courage, I tried to escape. I leaped and landed on the orchard garden and from there I made another jump and landed in the woods where I managed to save myself. I walked a little, but I began to lose strength. Blood ran down from my throat and hands. In that condition I reached a house in the woods where I was treated. But my fear was so great that I was unable to find a place where I felt secure. The faces of those butchers of human flesh were ever-present and I was so far from my family. Some people took care of me and I passed the night in the woods. The next day, two men carried me to the hospital of Civitella where I found my wife and daughters. They cleaned and disinfected me with care, but my fear was still so great that I wanted to return to the woods. The morning was frightful: I felt weaker and weaker, and I wanted to find a house where I could rest. I set out on foot. The road that I had to cross was filled with German trucks. I was with my wife and daughters and we cautiously crossed the road. Once more we were in the woods, but a little while later we reached the house of relatives of my wife where I was cared for by Doctor Gambassini. The German barbarians continued to track us down and not a day passed that there wasn't another victim nearby us in the woods. Although I was covered with wounds, I insisted on being carried into the deeper woods where it was impossible to find us and where I stayed for eight days. Because of the medication, I went back to the house where my wife could care for me. That day was almost sadder than June 29th. The Germans got me again and they took me from my family and brought me once more with them. I believed that they wouldn't do anything to me, given how wounded I was and that I wasn't able to do anything they wanted. But they were ever harsh. That voice saying “Raus” once more pierced my brain and I set out with them. They slapped me, they beat me, and they set me to work sawing wood. I couldn't do anything with my hands and the Germans tortured me constantly with their rifle butts and left me the whole day without eating. That evening toward eight I was let go. I could no longer stand on my feet when I heard the shouts of my wife and daughters coming to get me. Gino Bartolucci [Translation by the authors.]
- For an overview and interpretation of this debate see. Hans Ulrich Wehler, Entsorgung der deutseben Vergangenheit? ein polemischer Essay zum ‘Historikerstreit’ (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1988); Charles S. Maier, The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust and German National Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988); Richard J. Evans, In Hitler's Shadow: West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past (New York: Pantheon, 1989).
- These ideas are developed in Friedrich Meinecke, Machievellism: the doctrine of raison d'etat and its place in modern history (1924), trans. Douglas Scott (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957).
- This contrast was developed in the well-known work of Werner Sombart, Haendler und Helden. Patriotische Besinnungen (Munich and Leipzig: Dunker & Humblot, 1915).
- This is the title of the article by Ernst Nolte published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung June 16, 1986, which set off the Historikerstreit.
Law & Literature
Volume 3, 1991 - Issue 2