On March 24,1944 a battalion of German soldiers massacred three hundred and thity-five civilians and political prisoners in Rome at the Ardeatine Caves, ordered by Adolph Hitler in reprisal for the partisan attack against a company of German soldiers a day earlier. With a hidden, handmade bomb the partisans had killed twenty-eight troops instantly and five others who died in the following days.
In reprisal for the German deaths the Roman SS Command required the death of ten Italians for each soldier. The German command in Rome decided that the killings called for reprisals and decided to execute ten Italians for each dead German, an order which Hitler demanded be carried out immediately. By the afternoon of March 24, German soldiers had rounded up 330 victims: prisoners from Regina Coeli prison, Jews (75), innocent residents of Via Rasella where the attack had occurred, anti-fascist political activists, random victims picked up on the streets, people of every age and walk of life, even a fifteen-year-old boy.
Victims were transported to deserted quarries on the Via Ardeatina near Via Appia
By mistake, officials had seized 335 prisoners, five more than what Hitler’s order called for. The prisoners, transported to the Ardeatine caves in truckloads and in groups of five, were executed inside the caves. Soldiers forced the victims to kneel with hands tied behind their backs and fired bullets into the back of their heads one at a time. When officials learned of the five extra prisoners, they decided to kill them as well to prevent any knowledge of the massacre. Soldiers stacked the bodies in piles and buried them under tons of rock unleashed by explosives and set off to seal the caves and hide the massacre. For over a year the bodies remained inside the caves until the end of the war.
When the caves were eventually excavated, the bodies of those massacred were removed from the mass grave. All but twelve were able to be identified. Each victim was entombed at the site. By 2009 the Italian government had succeeded in identifying ten of the unknown bodies. The Cave site has become a national monument.
In 1944 artists competed to design the Mausoleum inaugurated five years later. Barbed wire of battlefields and concentration camps inspired the bronze gate concept. On it tortured bodies merge with the moving branches of a Tree of Life. A colossal concrete statue by Francesco Coccia represents three male figures of disparate ages standing together as one, hands tied behind their backs. Each face portrays the range of emotions men would feel marching to their deaths.
A monolith, a huge tombstone of reinforced cement, covers all the tombs.
The design of the tombs are identical sarcophagi aligned in rows.
Next to the mausoleum stands a museum which contains relics of the massacre and details its gruesome events. Official ceremonies are held annually at the Fosse to remember the mass slaughter that took place here in 1943.
