Italy’s Liberation: The Englishman who wasn’t English and the Forgotten Anglo-Americans

In his book The Resistance in Western Europe, Olivier Wieviorka writes, “From Belgium to the Netherlands and from France to Norway, all countries celebrated their own internal Resistance in the postwar period, seeking to emphasize the prominent role these patriotic forces played in liberating their national territories. This led to a minimization of the Allies’ contribution.”

In Italy, no square has a monument dedicated to the sacrifice of Allied soldiers and civilians involved in the war effort. We only have large cemeteries. They are beautifully maintained, yet they are still only cemeteries. Yet, the Allies played a fundamental role in the victory over Fascism and Nazism. 

In my extensive research on Jewish Resistance fighters in Italy, I have identified quite a number of individuals who worked on behalf of British (SOE) and American (OSS) intelligence services in Italy. Some of them paid with their lives for their commitment to dangerous missions. 

One of them was Gabor Adler, who was born in Romania. He belonged to a Hungarian Jewish family that immigrated to Italy in the 1920s. After anti-Jewish laws were enacted, Adler left Milan and reached Morocco. In Tangier, he was approached by SOE agents, who trained and recruited him into British intelligence under the cover name John Armstrong. After landing from a submarine on the eastern coast of Sardinia in January 1943, Adler was identified by the Fascist SIM (Military Intelligence Service) and arrested. 

He was transferred to Rome and imprisoned in the Italian wing of Regina Coeli Prison. On June 3, 1944, he was moved to Via Tasso and added to a group of prisoners whom the Germans planned to transfer to Verona during their retreat from Rome. Adler’s group consisted of 14 people, including the trade unionist Bruno Buozzi. Near the La Storta estate, a few kilometers from Rome, the 14 prisoners were forced off the truck and shot. 

This massacre, known as The La Storta Massacre, became widely known immediately after the war. However, Adler’s name was missing from the memorial plaque, which described him as an “unknown Englishman.” This remained the case until the researcher Marco Patucchi was able to give a name to that unknown man and recount his story in a book titled La spia venuta dal nulla (The spy coming from nowhere), published in 2025.

Liliana Picciotto

Historian

Translated by Caterina Mansani and revised by Elizabeth El Khoury, students at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, trainees in the newsroom of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.