Vallucciole
13/04/1944
Premeditated occupation of territory accompanied by indiscriminate reprisal
Shortly after the armistice of September 8th 1943, favoured by the presence of extensive forests and mountains, and its strategic proximity to Monte Falterona, Vallucciole was where the first partisan formations of the Comitato Provinciale di Concentrazione Antifascista (C.P.C.A.) cane into being. Chosen as the site for an arms cache by the Stia resistance group on September 13th, in early autumn the hamlet became a garrison for the entire Aretine Resistance forces, and within a month was housing more than 100 partisans and about thirty ex-prisoners of war of the British army, most of whom had escaped from prison camps in Renicci and Laterina. The successes and incursions of the partisans, led by Major Aldo Caponi, soon became intolerable for the fascist military authorities. Exploiting its powerful apparatus of denunciation and espionage, the 96th Legion of the G.N.R., led by Lieutenant Emilio Vecoli and Sergeant Umberto Cerasi Abbatecola, as early as the end of October 1943 had become aware of the importance of the Falterona base. On November 10th, the two fascists led a thoroughgoing rounding-up operation in the upper Casentino. They succeeded in intercepting a load of supplies vital to the Resistance at Molin di Bucchio and killing the young Arezzo student Pio Borri, a leading figure in the anti-fascist movement. The gravity of the situation led to the immediate disbanding of Caponi’s men, followed by the complete withdrawal of partisans from the area until April 11th 1944. In spite of this, the Stia fascists and the municipal authorities of the Fascio Repubblicano inexplicably continued to maintain the fiction of Vallucciole as a “partisan hideout”, providing false information to the German Commands, actively collaborating in drawing up maps with detailed information on the partisans’ supposed activities, and urging a punitive action that would deal a final blow to the inhabitants of this area. Partly because of this information, the Germans included the southern side of the Falterona in a rounding-up operation already planned at the beginning of April 1944 with the more general aim of clearing the eastern Apennine strip of Tuscany of armed gangs and their civilian supporters. It was under this operation that on April 11th 1944 three officers of the 2nd and 4th companies of the Hermann Göring’s Expeditionary Division went to Molin di Bucchio, the same companies that would assult 109 civilians with unprecedented violence two days later. Two of the soldiers were killed by a squad of Florentine partisans of the Faliero Pucci detachment in transit at that time from Monte Giovi towards San Paolo in Alpe. This episode, as historians have demonstrated, was an additional factor in confirming the intention to round up the inhabitants of the hamlet, a decision already documented at the end of March 1944. At dawn on April 13th 1944, about 500 paratroopers of the Fallschirm-Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung, who had previously arrived in Stia on board “four small tanks with open turrets, about 50 small four-seater amphibious vehicles and an even larger number of sidecars, three trucks, two 6- or 8-wheeled armoured cars, and a large radio truck” poured into the Vallucciole valley, where an unsuspecting population of about 130 poor farmers’ families was awaiting them. Setting off in three directions (Giuncheto, Moiano and Serelli), the paratroopers, led by local fascists in disguise, stormed every house, immediately killing old people, women and children, plundering furniture and livestock and finally setting fire to the houses. The few men present in the village were forced to carry crates all day long under the threat of machine-guns as the Germans frantically searched for partisans. The men were the helpless witnesses of the paratroopers’ violence as they exterminated the girls and boys of the farms. At the end of the afternoon, most of these men were also to fall, mown down from behind by machine-guns in the fields of Giuncheto after being told they could leave unharmed. The bodies of 109 hapless innocents, gathered up and buried in the small cemetery by the pitying hands of the local clergy and volunteers of the Misericordia (Ambulance brigade) of Stia, remain to this day in this memorial as an eternal testimony to nazi madness. If any guilt is comparable to the atrocious German violence (which included the butchering of a newborn baby by slamming its head against a wall), it is that of the Italian spies and collaborators who, concealed by masks and uniforms, took part in the massacre.
The Voices
Rino Andreucci
Crediti: Località Vallucciole. Riprese di Sergio Spiganti e intervista di Simone Duranti realizzata il 12/02/2003.
Maria Vadi
Crediti: Località Vallucciole. Riprese di Sergio Spiganti e intervista di Simone Duranti realizzata il 12/02/2003
Mario Vadi
Crediti: Località Vallucciole. Riprese di Sergio Spiganti e intervista di Simone Duranti realizzata il 12/02/2003.
Salvatore Vecchioni
Crediti: Località la Mausolea di Soci. Riprese di Pier Angelo Bonazzoli e interviste degli studenti della scuola media di Soci, realizzata il 12/11/2001.
The Signs
Informations
Place of placement: Cimitero di Stia
Date of placement:
Description
Personal observations
News and contextualisation
Gallery:
Author: Alessandro Bargellini
Informations
Place of placement: Flowerbed next to the former Town Hall
Date of placement: 23/04/2006
Description
Personal observations
News and contextualisation
Gallery:
Author: Alessandro Bargellini
Informations
Place of placement: Roadside
Date of placement: 01/10/2011
Description
Personal observations
News and contextualisation
Gallery:
Author: Liceo Petrarca Arezzo
Informations
Place of placement: Church of Vallucciole
Date of placement:
Description
Personal observations
News and contextualisation
Gallery:
Author: Liceo Petrarca Arezzo
