FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
In October 1943, after the Nazis began a brutal occupation of their former ally, German troops hanged six Italian civilians on a hill in southern Italy as collective punishment for killing a soldier who had begged for food.
80 years later, some of the relatives of the men killed in Fornelli will finally receive a share of the 12 million euros awarded by an Italian court as compensation for the trauma of their families.
“We still mark the event every year. She has not been forgotten," said Mauro Petrarca, the great-grandson of one of those killed, Domenico Lancellotta, a 52-year-old Roman Catholic father of five daughters and a son.
All but one of the family members alive at the time of the murders are now dead, but under Italian law, damages owed to them can still be passed on to their heirs. That means Petrarca will receive about 130,000 euros ($142,000) under the terms of a 2020 court ruling.
In an ironic twist, it will be Italy, not Germany, that will pay after losing a battle at the International Court of Justice if Berlin can still be held liable for damages related to World War II crimes and atrocities.
Jewish organizations in Italy believe that Berlin must pay to accept their historic responsibility. But victims' groups also fear Rome is dragging its feet in dealing with a deluge of claims that could weigh on the state's books.
"This is a very fraught issue, both politically and legally," said Giulio Disegni, vice president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), which has pursued the case on behalf of Jewish victims of Nazi horrors.
A study funded by the German government and published in 2016 estimated that 22,000 Italians were victims of Nazi war crimes, including up to 8,000 Jews deported to death camps.
Thousands more Italians were forced to work as slave laborers in Germany, making them eligible for reparations.
The first people to benefit from a new government fund set up to deal with the claims are the descendants of six Catholic Fornelli men who hanged themselves while German soldiers played music on a gramophone stolen from a nearby house.
Their assassination came a month after Italy signed an armistice with Allied forces, ending its participation in World War II and abandoning the Nazis, who immediately began their occupation of the country.
Lini një Përgjigje