Ardeatine Caves massacre, Rome does not forget

The highest state officials and the leaders of Italian and Roman Jewry paid tribute last week to the victims of the WWII Ardeatine Caves massacre on Rome’s southern outskirts. Italian President Sergio Mattarella laid a wreath in memory of the 335 victims executed 80 years ago, on March 24, by Nazi officers in a reprisal for a partisan attack that killed 33 German soldiers in central Rome on a street near the Trevi Fountain. After the ceremony, Francesco Albertelli and Marco Trasciani, president and secretary general, respectively, of the National Association of Italian Martyred Families (ANFIM), spoke. Rome’s Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni elevated a Jewish prayer, and military chaplain Sergio Siddi a Catholic prayer. A memorial ceremony was also held earlier in front of the Great Synagogue, attended by Mayor Roberto Gualtieri, among others.

Photo: Quirinal