Legacy of Sorrows (2 page)

‘You get on with your chores, Bruno and leave your poor brother alone,' she shouted in a shrill voice. Rico pulled a face at me from behind her back and made a rude gesture.

Later on that night, the entire family, with the exception of Benito, gathered round the large kitchen table for supper. Papà sat in his usual place and coughed for silence. We all joined hands and waited for Papà to pray. ‘Thank you Lord for your provision, bless it to us now we pray. Keep us safe this night and through the next day. Amen.' ‘Amen' we all chorused, as we reached for the bread together, slapping each other's hands aside.

We had all completed our primary schooling and, in liking with the other children on the mountain, we had left school at the age of twelve. Secondary education was not something that mountain people usually entered into. We had our farms, livestock, olive groves and vines to look after, so secondary education was just a frivolous luxury that we couldn't afford and we considered unnecessary to our way of life.

After dinner was over, Papà sat with us round the table that night and had a glass of his home-made wine. These were the times that I enjoyed most of all, our family discussions. Papà told us the story of Mussolini and how the great man had let his people down. At first, when he had come to power, all the Italian people adored him, except for the communists and the Mafia who he hunted down with a vengeance. He was the Duce: the leader. He provided work for his people and restored the international standing of a young nation not long unified. Then, as time went on, he made mistakes. Bad mistakes that brought the hated Germans and the war to Italy. Now, the people in the towns were hungry and furious at him for deserting them for his safe haven in Lake Garda, protected by the detested
tedeschi
, the Germans.

I told Papà that I remembered having to give the fascist salute in school at the start of the morning lessons. The teacher would shout out: ‘
Eia, Eia
' and we would all answer in unison, ‘
Alalà
'. I asked ‘Papà, what did that mean?' He smiled, a sad smile, before answering, ‘It didn't mean anything, just gibberish and nonsense. Much the same as fascism itself.' Benito spoke up, ‘If we aren't fascists now Papà, will I have to change my name?' Papà looked up at him and said, ‘Benito was a name to be proud of before Mussolini came to power, and it will still be a name to be proud of after he has gone.'

I asked him, ‘Papà, when will the Germans leave Italy? Daniello Petroni in the village said he heard his father say that the Germans are doing
rastrellamenti
¹
in the villages below Monte Sole and killing anyone they find. Is that true?'

Papà took his time to answer me. He drummed his fingers on the kitchen table, and said, ‘The Germans have taken up defensive positions on a line just south of Monte Sole. The Allies are attacking it as we speak and will eventually break through. The Germans have thrown all they have into the line to defend it and cannot allow the partisans to attack them in the rear. They can't fight two fronts at once. I think they will have to do more
rastrellamenti
in the area to stop the partisans. They may eventually come here.'

The room was silent until Pippo said. ‘Are we in danger Papà?'

Papà raised his two hands palm up in a gesture that said ‘I don't know.' ‘We should be safe on Monte Sole with the Stella Rossa watching and protecting the area. If there is any sign of the Germans coming up the mountain, then we will go into the woods and hide until they leave. With the Allies on their tail, the Nazis will not want to hang about and be captured.' With a grave look on his face he then said, ‘If they do come and you have time, run into the woods and hide up a tree until they have left. Is that understood?' We all looked at each other with uncertainty. We had never seen Papàso serious before. Pippo stood up and said, ‘If they come, Papà, I'll just throw Rico at them. He could fart for Italy and they would run at the first smell.' We all laughed at this, whilst Rico playfully aimed a kick at his elder brother.

Before long, it was time for bed. It was my turn to help Aunt Lisa and Uncle Luigi with the milking on the farm tomorrow, so I had to leave the house at 4.30am. Pippo was learning how to cobble boots with Papà in the workshop. Papà had great hopes that he would take over his business in due course.

Benito and Rico had the task of fixing some roof tiles that had come loose the week before during a high wind. They were pleased with this as it wouldn't take long and they could catch up with the football in the meadow.

We all said goodnight to each other. Mamma and Papà shared a room with baby Lisa, Pippo and Benito shared a room at the back of the house and I shared one with Rico.

Soon the house was quiet.

1
House-to-house searches, looking for enemies of the dictatorship.

Chapter 2

S
eptember
28th 1944
     Major Reder was proud of his position and growing reputation in the SS. He now commanded a Battalion of his own. The 16th Waffen SS Panzer Grenadiers. His expertise lay, so his superiors told him, in the clearance, and if possible the extermination, of large bands of Italian partisans, the Communist militias that were now the scourge of the Wehrmacht. They didn't fight you like real soldiers; they attacked you by ambush or by the sabotage of transport links. They had no honour and deserved to die the most violent deaths. The SS in particular viewed this type of warfare as the work of civilian criminal gangs who had no right becoming involved in armed conflict against them.

Reder first came across this type of warfare in Russia. The German Army was successful there in combating this kind of terror by employing ruthless tactics against them.

Unfortunately, he had lost his left arm in Russia during the fighting there in 1943, and after a period of convalescing back home, he was sent to Italy to help with the growing menace of the partisans there.

He had just returned from Tuscany where, in August, units under his command had ‘cleared' the area of partisans in the village of Sant'Anna. They had entered the village after completely surrounding it, and had left again three hours later leaving over five hundred of the villagers dead. They had murdered, raped, and mutilated men, women and children, in the worst ways imaginable. In the list of the slaughtered was a twenty-day-old baby that was taken from its dead mothers arms by the SS and used as a football. In another incident, a seven-month pregnant woman was shot and her unborn baby cut from her womb and butchered.

Major Reder reflected on the events. It was necessary, he thought, to bring order to the area. It may appear brutal to the onlooker, but the results spoke for themselves. Reder reasoned that these reprisals, brutal as they were, brought a sense of fear to the Italian population in general and helped to cut off support for the partisans. For every German Soldier killed by the partisans, he had promised reprisals of up to one hundred Italians killed, and so far had kept his promise.

As he dressed, he looked at himself in the mirror. He had been recommended for promotion to the Führer for doing his duty, and he revelled in his growing reputation in Berlin for getting the job done.

He wasn't unduly worried about his stump of a left arm. In his service to the Fatherland and to Hitler, he would gladly have given his life.

Reder had received fresh orders that day from the Wehrmacht headquarters. They were concerned about the increasing amount of Partisan activity that was attacking them from the rear and causing them a tactical problem in how to deal with it. The source of this activity seemed to be coming from the direction of Monte Sole. Field Marshall Kesselring, the overall German commander in Italy, had personally given the order to eradicate this problem in as ruthless a way as possible, to serve as a reminder to others of what would happen to them if they became involved with the partisans or offered them support.

The German's last line of defence, the Gothic line, was being hard-pressed by the Allies, and Kesselring needed all his forces in the line to defend it. This Partisan menace was causing badly needed resources to be diverted from the main fighting at the front to combat them, and Reder had been ordered to take his unit to Monte Sole to completely eliminate this threat.

He was about to head to a meeting of his Officers and NCOs, to explain what the order meant in reality and to detail how the operation would take place. He thought out aloud, ‘Thankfully, I can rely on my men not to be weak willed in carrying out this order.'

As Major Reder entered the large ornate room that served the Battalion as an operations centre, the assembled officers and NCOs immediately stood and with raised right arm gave the Nazi salute,
Heil Hitler
.

He raised his remaining arm in response, and crossed to the lectern set in front of them. He looked out over the thirty soldiers gathered there and nodded his head in approval. These men were the elite, the toughest and the strongest soldiers he had ever commanded or served with. Reder had served on the Eastern Front with some of the men in front of him and he knew they had what it takes to eliminate this Partisan menace without flinching. Others in the group had participated in the Final Solution in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, which were Hitler's industrialised murder camps for some six million Jews and political opposers.

Reder knew that they would obey also the order to kill the partisans and those who aided them with food and shelter without question. His eyes were filled with pride that the Fatherland could produce men of steel such as these. Silence filled the room as he prepared to speak.

‘Soldiers of the Fatherland, we have been given another special task to carry out over the next few days. Field Marshall Kesselring himself has specifically asked for this unit to be at the forefront of the operation, and I have been honoured to accept the mission on your behalf.' The men murmured to one another and Reder waited until they settled back down.

‘Starting at daybreak tomorrow we will attack the Monte Sole massif and clear the area of a band of criminals who call themselves the Stella Rossa: communist thieves, cowards and murderers who are attacking our positions in the line from behind. They number about fifteen hundred men, and our intelligence has reported them to be well armed. They are also supported by the majority of the local population, who view them as the guardians of the region. The main village, Marzabotto, has around six hundred inhabitants, and with the hamlets and farms around the massif, the total population is estimated at more than eighteen hundred men, women and children. Any questions so far?'

A blonde, well-built giant of a man stood up and clicked his heels.

‘Yes, Kuller?' Reder said to Sergeant Hans Kuller, his Company Sergeant, who was only twenty-two years old and had been with him since 1943 when he was then a Private in the SS. Reder had become used to his abrupt manner; he saw it as part of what made Kuller an exceptional soldier. The first time they had met was in Russia during an action against units of the Red Army, when Reder was severely wounded by shrapnel in his left arm from an exploding mortar shell. Kuller had picked him up and carried him in his arms as you would a sleeping baby, whilst all the time he was under fire from enemy mortars and automatic weapons. He carried him to safety behind their lines and handed him over to Army Medics. When Reder eventually recovered and returned to duty he had requested that Kuller be transferred to his command. The request was accepted by the High Command and Kuller soon found himself transferred to Reder's unit and promoted to Sergeant. A close bond based on mutual respect was soon formed between them, though neither soldier ever took advantage of this friendship.

Kuller stood to attention and said. ‘Are we being supported by other units, sir?'

‘We are, Sergeant. Units of the Wehrmacht will provide mopping-up support on the perimeters, while we do the heavy work. There will also be a unit from the GNR – the Italian Fascist Black Brigade – working with us. I don't expect them to be very active in their duty, or to be as efficient or disciplined in their approach to exterminating these criminals as we are, so if they baulk at their clear duty then we will need to “educate” them properly.'

This caused a ripple of laughter across the room. There was no mistaking what he meant by “educating them”. ‘So, men of the Waffen SS, we leave our barracks at 0400 tomorrow morning. Transport will be waiting on us, and it should take us around twenty minutes to get to our marshalling point. The operation starts at 0430, so I want you to organise a check on your weapons and replenish with hand grenades, ammunition, mortars and whatever else your men will need for the work ahead now.' He looked around once more at their eager faces, shouted out
Heil Hitler!
and saluted with his outstretched arm. At this, all his men sprang to their feet, shouted
Heil Hitler!
in reply and gave the Nazi salute.

There was a buzz of expectancy in the room as the soldiers spoke for a few minutes before leaving to brief their troops on the operation.

Sergeant Kuller was bright-eyed and smiling at the thought of exterminating more partisans and their peasant supporters as he made his way to the SS barracks. He thanked God for the day he had run across Major Reder. He saw in him a perfect example of what an SS officer should be: brave, patriotic and zealous in his duty. He even envied him the loss of his arm, as he saw it as a red badge of courage. “One day,” he thought, “I will be like the Major. In the meantime, I will do my duty as best I can, even if it means giving my life for the Führer.”