Avena
27/08/1944
Killing of individual linked to evacuation and deportation operations
On August 27th, a large German contingent moved into Avena together with its camp kitchens, as it hastened to retreat to the mountain positions of the Gothic Line. In the morning, a group of 25 “policemen and gendarmes” ordered the inhabitants to evacuate their homes and assembled them in the Mausolea, a farm of the Camaldolese monks near Soci, actually to await forced deportations towards Romagna. When one married couple reached the farm, the husband immediately ran away, preferring to go straight home instead of repairing to Poppi with his wife. He was found 17 days later near his home, having bled to death, his body by now decomposing. In the same village there was another dramatic episode that is worth mentioning, although it is not strictly attributable to the German forces. Shocked by the violent handling of the deportation, a woman had an attack of hysteria. It led to her death a few months later, in the Poppi Hospital, without her showing any signs of recovery.