HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The church of Santa Maria Assunta of Casaglia was the most important church in the whole area and a meeting point for the christian community around Monte Sole.
On the 29 September, many people, when they heard what was happening, fled from different locations and houses to the church of Casaglia. They were only women, children and old people. The adult men hid in the forest. When they arrived in the church, there was Don Ubaldo Marchioni who started to pray the rosary with them.

This is the testimony of Cornelia Paselli, she was 18 years old in 1944 and in the massacre she lost her mother and two small brothers
We ran to this church that was the parish of Casaglia. As soon as we arrived, there were around 100 people, all sheltered in the church... they all believed they were safe inside the church... they thought nobody would do them any harm there, or burn the church... we felt safe there. We went inside and then the priest came and said: “Let’s say the rosary, we are in danger, let’s pray together” but nobody could prey, we were all so worried.
And we waited, waited, all scared... then at a certain point we heard someone knocking at the door, and there were Germans SS. They screamed: “Get out, get out!” and then they told to the priest: “Bring all these persons to Cŕ Dizzola”. When I heard that I thought: “As soon as I am in the woods, I will hide”, I just thought of hiding at once. While we were walking, at the cross that brings down to Cerpiano, another squad of Germans arrived. When they saw us they started screaming “Alt alt alt!”. An officer ordered to smash down the door of the cemetery. Seeing that scene, I told my mother: “See mum, that is our end”... I could imagine the scene, the end. Then they took the priest with them and a German was placed in front of us, with the machine-gun; we had to wait for an answer because the priest had told them: “The other squad told us to go to Cŕ Dizzola”. We waited for almost half an hour, it was raining and then a German came to give orders. He said: “Raus raus!” so I asked “What?’’ and he answered “Avanti avanti!” rudely. I was in the middle of the group and while I was walking through the gate of the cemetery I thought... I was thinking so many things that I couldn’t think clearly about one thing... I wanted to run away, to jump out, to save my life somehow... but I wasn’t able, it was as if my brain was exploding...
So, I started pushing and pushing, I wanted to stay in the middle of the group to feel protected with the people around me... but everyone was pushing and I found myself near the wall, on the left side.
I couldn’t move from there, and I saw a German in front of me with a machine-gun, right in front of me... I could see, hear everything... I saw that he was loading the machine-gun, I stayed rooted to the spot, I wanted to keep pushing but I couldn’t move from there...
Then I heard a big blow, very big blow, I didn’t know what it was. “Could it be the machine-gun? How heavy...” But then plaster was falling down... and I understood that it was a hand granade. There had been a big explosion, that made me jump right into the middle of the group. With my head down and my legs up... There I started to feel the blood of the others dripping on me, on my face. I thought it was the blood of the wounds of the others, then for a moment I thought it was mine and I fainted... I thought maybe I had been wounded and I hadn’t felt any pain... I asked myself this question and then fainted. I realised this because after some time I started to hear voices. They seemed far away, but it was my mum calling me: “Cornelia.. Cornelia..”, but I kept quiet because I was scared and she kept calling, I answered, she asked me: “Are you still alive?” “Yes mum, but be quiet, for Godness’ sake..”. Everyone there was crying, one woman, when she heard my voice, she told me: “Please come and help me, I lost my hand”. My mum said me “I cannot stand on my feet anymore, my legs have been shot”, she couldn’t stand anymore. And then she said “Gino and Maria, they’re gone already”. While my sister, my sister was screaming, she was 15, she was screaming: “My head, my head!”, there had been an explosion next to her, a woman was killed and she believed that her head was broken.
I could walk, but it took me a lot to get out because I had all the dead bodies over me, but I had to help my mother. She wasn’t moaning and I told her: “Now I get out of here and come to help you”. I remained there from 9 until 4 in the afternoon and when I realized that the Germans were gone, there was this kid standing who said “they’re gone, ran away!”. So Lucia Sabbioni ran away first, then two or three more. Lucia was seriously wounded and someone carried her on his shoulders. I got on my feet, dragged my mother near the wall, put a string on her thigh as she was bleeding and laid her down. “Mum, now I go looking for help in Cerpiano, and then we bring you to Bologna, at Rizzoli, they will make new legs for you”, I tried to comfort her and, poor woman, she was patient. My sister and my cousin stayed there. Out of the cemetery, you could see Cerpiano from there and even the oratory. Sitting on the stairs of the oratory there was a German on duty, and I could hear screaming and yelling from the inside... so I realized that the same had happened there too. When I realized that, I ran away through the woods and arrived in Gardelletta, looking for someone, but there wasn’t a living soul. A German on duty didn’t see me. I walked towards the railway, and passed by our house but I didn’t dare going in, I looked at the house and then I said to myself: “What am I going to do there, there’s no one left”. Then I went up to the farm workers, since we had a sheep, and my father left her there when we evacuated. When I arrived, it was close to our place, I saw all the people dead in the farmyard, and then I looked around and I saw the sheep slaughtered, full of blood, and that made feel so sad, disheartened, mortified and I started crying and crying since I hadn’t been able to cry before. When I saw the sheep, I realized that that was the end. I went back sobbing, for me everything was dead. I arrived at Casa Veneziani and they were all dead there too.


This is what the Italian newspaper "Il Resto del Carlino" wrote on Wednesday, October 11th 1944

The usual uncontrolled voices, the typical product of the gallopping fantasies in war time, were assuring until yesterday that up to 150 women, elders and children had been shot dead by combing-our German troops in the Municipality of Marzabotto during a police operation against a band of bandits.
We can deny these voices and the fact itself. There has been a formal denial; moreover there was an accurate examination. It is true that in the area of Marzabotto there was a police operation against a band of rebels, which had several losses, but it is not true that the combing-out regarded the civil population.
This is then the usual manipulation, which will be soon unveiled: in fact anybody who had asked to a honest inhabitant of Marzabotto, or at least to one of those returned from those places, could have discovered the real version of the facts.