According to the testimonies, around 50 families normally lived in Caprara. However, between 1943 and 1945, the village has seen a growth of the population, caused by the arrival of refugees from Bologna (evacuees). In fact, many people left Bologna, because the allied bombardments made it more dangerous, to move, with family or friends, to the countryside, because they felt safer and more protected there.
Therefore, on the 29th of September, the first Nazi troops found many people in Caprara.

Gilberto Fabbri, seeing the burning houses and hearing the shots of the approaching Nazi army on the morning of the 29th of September, decided to seek refuge in Caprara.
This is Gilberto Fabbri's story (He was 14 years old):
I found there fifty people, all women, girls and children. We spent there many hours of scaring waiting: the terror had taken away our voices, many women were crying and sighing, lying on the floor, holding their children.
Around 3 p.m., we were starting to hope that they wouldn't find us, when three Nazis arrived, disguised with camouflage. They ordered us to leave the shelter, and they crowded us in the kitchen of the house in Caprara: they closed the door leaving open only the window, through which they launched four hand granades, and a big one. The explosion was terribel and covered the scream of everybody there, then the thick smoke covered the dead bodies. I had a terrible pain in my legs, but I still managed to jump out of the window, and I hid between some bushes three or four meters away.
I saw the three Nazis open the door of the house and place a machine gun. I turned my head, and on the other side I saw two women run through the fields. I heard some shootings, and the two women fell on the ground on e after the other.
After about 15 minutes, I was still hidden behind the bush, next to where I was staying, they fired their machine guns, and from the kitchen came the desperate cries from the women and children that were still alive. Then there was silence.
(Testimony from the book of Renato Giorgi, "Marzabotto parla")

The following testimony is from Salvina Astrali: 8 of her relatives died in Caprara
When we heard the cannon shots, we decided to leave Villa d’Ignano and to go to Caprara since my mother thought we were safe there. We tied the cows at the cart and then left and other 4 families left with us. We arrived in Caprara the night before the mopping up operation.
I survived because that night I told my mother: “we left all the cows back home, all the cows, I am going to take them here”. So my friends and I went back home. Along the way we met my father and he said: “Kids, go back because they are mopping up Caprara as well. Your mum told me to leave... she say that they leave women and children, and they take the men and send them to Germany”.
We went back passing by Tura, where some partisans were hiding and Ettore (Ettore Benassi, a partisan of the Stella Rossa brigade – note of the translator) asked: “where are you going?”. We told him what was happening and he told us to stop there.
The day after my two sisters arrived, we couldn’t recognise them, the way they were...full of blood and flesh.. they had a bit of everything on them..one had her eyes burnt, and couldn’t see anything, the other had been hit by a cannon ball in her back... there was a hole where you could put your fist.. how hard it was for them to get there... the one who could not see carried the one who could not walk on her shoulder and this one told the sister where to go. There were a lot of persons there and when they heard my sisters speaking and that in Caprara were all dead and no one survived, they all ran away, they were all scared. All ran away but the doctor who told us: “I’ve got only one injection left, if it works, then fine, otherwise I really don’t know how I can help your sister”. That one worked, and also our treatment with water and salt, and we saved her.
They said that they survived because a cupboard had fallen on them, and they had stayed under it...and they could hear all the people screaming... there were many kids, that’s why only few people survived...and the machine-gun on the window was shooting; when all the kids were dead, those persons who were still alive ran away. They overheard some persons outside who were speaking in italian. Those who fired were not all Germans, there were Italians too.
In Caprara I lost my mother and three sisters and from my husband’ side, seven brothers-in-law and the mother-in-law, the Iubini family. Only my husband survived because he was in Germany. His father never agreed to be interviewed, he just kept all his grief inside. One of his eight children was only 20 days old and he found only the feathers of the pillow; another one was astride the window and a pig was eating his head...
I had to take care of my sisters and my father, they were all wounded, so I didn’t go back to Caprara. I was 14 years old, we knew that they were all dead.


This is the testimony of Gastone Sgargi, a partisan of the Stella Rossa brigade, who was passing by Caprara in the afternoon of September 29th 1944.
When we arrived in Caprara, in this big yard, the most terrible things were the screams of men, women and children who were being killed... a terrible scene, it is impossible to tell: the cattle, half burnt, was screaming...this is something, is something...it will be stamped in my mind for ever, anyway, it will always be on my mind. It was something really...a massacre, this is what it was. I saw kids butchered over there...no, no, no! This has left a mark on each of us and this mark will be here forever, because being at war is one thing, you fight on equal terms, me on my side, and you on your side, but such a slaughtering of defenceless children and women, that has been atrocious. Screaming, suffering, people running, bleeding, they didn’t know where...If you haven’t seen it, you cannot believe it, it’s impossible to say...something like that...it’s impossible. .