Bruno Buozzi: Nazi victim who "gave his life for liberty"

"They gave their life for liberty."
The name of a Hungarian Jew, Gabor Adler, alias
Captain John Armstrong, alias Gabriele Bianchi,
was added only in 2007 after his identity--previously
he was known only as "an English spy"--was confirmed.

One of the late tragedies of World War II in Italy was the Germans' assassination of Italian prisoners as the Germans fled north from advancing Allied forces.

One of the most famous of these martyrs, and so they are considered, is Bruno Buozzi, whose name graces streets, piazzas, schools, sports fields and cooperatives throughout Italy.

Buozzi, a trade unionist held prisoner in the infamous SS torture house on via Tasso (now Museo Storico della Liberazione - "Historical Museum of the Liberation"), was killed on June 4, 1944, along with 13 other men, most of them partisans of the "Matteotti Brigade" (Brigate Matteotti), less than 10 miles from the northern gate of Rome.


You can see a small monument to these men on via Cassia, km 14.2, now at the intersection of via Giulio Galli.  We went in search of the monument last year, and found it in a small plot, with cars and scooters whizzing by.  At one time, we had read, there was a grove of trees with the name of a victim on each of 14 trees.  We think we found the grove, but it is barred with fences and gates, and no names are visible.

Why is this particular assassination so memorable?  In part it is because of Buozzi's legacy as a giant among trade union organizers and politicians in the inter-war period; Italy lost an important leader with his death.  Another is for the odd series of events that led to his - and the others' - death.

The monument is tucked beneath some shrubbery on the
very busy via Cassia. The monument is just
above the right tail light of the grey car. 

Buozzi, born near Ferrara, and a machinist in Milan and Turin, was a worker-organizer, and organize he did.  He kept unions together, built them to great stature, negotiated for and among them, and also served as a leading politician in Rome.  Resisting Mussolini's attempts to draw him into the Fascist Party, he ended up in exile in Paris, where he ultimately was captured by the Germans.  He continued his leadership of the unions and the socialist parties while in exile and even in the brief period between the fall of Mussolini and the occupation of Rome by the Germans in 1943.  He was fighting at Porta San Paolo in the brief resistance to the German invasion of Rome in September 1943, and then went underground again.

Even the circumstances of Buozzi's capture in Rome and assassination are murky and make for the stuff of mystery.  It's possible he was betrayed by a young man (not yet old enough to shave, according to the stories) who worked in the Resistance but also for the Germans.

The large memorial/tomb of Buozzi in Rome's Campo Veranno (another
reason we need to return to this most memorable cemetery in Rome). Photo by Luciano Tronati (Feb. 2016)

There were two trucks loaded with prisoners that were to leave the via Tasso prison heading north on June 3, 1944.  One broke down; the men in it were saved.  Buozzi made the decision to go in what turned out to be the functioning truck.  There is a question of why the men ended up dead.  Some evidence points to the Germans wanting to make room for loot.   Then there is the question of who gave the orders to shoot the men in this second truck.  The judicial finger was pointed at SS Erich Priebke, deputy commander of the SS headquarters in via Tasso.  Priebke actually obtained a conviction for libel against the publisher and the historian author of a 1994 article in which he was implicated as the one who ordered the killings.  He was awarded 20 million lire (about $10,000) in damages in 2001, an award overturned in 2005.  Priebke's appeal was dismissed just 7 years ago, in 2010, over 60 years after the event.  Bill wrote about Priebke in 2010, when, having been given a life sentence for his World War II crimes (for which he never repented), he was released from house arrest in Rome--to protests.  He died in 2013, at age 100, in Rome.

The gate blocking the grove, and behind the trees the type of housing now
dominating the area.

The shallow graves of the 14 murdered men were found shortly after their assassination when "peasants" led the Allies to the sites of the graves, not far from via Cassia.  It's hard to imagine "peasants" in this area now, which is basically a suburb of Rome with middle-class housing.  We walked quite a few of the streets in the area, hoping--in vain it turned out--to find more evidence of the massacre.

A room in the via Tasso Historical Museum of the Liberation is dedicated to the murder victims of June 4, 1944.  The via Tasso museum is #3 on RST's Top 40.  It's even easier to visit today, with more didactic materials in English.

Dianne

A monument at Porta San Paolo to the more than
400 people who died trying to prevent the Germans
from entering the city in September, 1943.  Buozzi
was among the fighters who survived.

Walking the (Aurelian) Wall (III): the Tame and the Wild Sides

A handsome portion of the wall, near the Pyramid, with a tropical look

This section of the Aurelian Wall, running from Porta San Paolo and the Pyramid to the Tevere (and Porta Portese), has two faces: one quite touristy and civilized, the other rather odd and possibly even a bit dangerous.  It is noted by some as one of the longer, intact stretches of this third century wall, once encircling all of Rome.  But the stretch has its limitations, as RST discovered. [Update: a Google map that includes this itinerary.]

To the left of the Pyramid, a short section
 of the wall, extending toward - but not to -
Porta San Paolo; here you also can see
where the wall  has been removed for traffic.

The tame, or civilized phase begins at the Pyramid (here, a part of the wall - another "existing structure" used to build the wall quickly in 271-75 AD).  Because this area is well known for armed resistance to Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943, the wall here is a resource for memories of that moment.

Remembering the dead

The pillar (photo right) remembers 471 people who died defending the city.  Just beyond, between the Pyramid and the wall proper, volunteers who care for the hundreds of cats that live in a special facility here, were closing up for the day.






And beyond that, the wall itself is impressive (see photo at the top of this post), even if the grounds on the outside of the wall are unkempt and full of evidence that a lot of drinking is done here: not only bottles but dozens of bottle caps embedded in a stump.  Though we're on the outside here, the inside of the wall is accessible in this area through two cemeteries: the well-known Non-Catholic Cemetery, which contains lots of important bodies, including that of the Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci, and the haunting (British) Commonwealth Cemetery just across via N. Zabaglia, just ahead (both, again, inside the wall).

Mailbox for wall "address"

Now things get a bit funky.  As we continued beyond the small turnabout/piazza, following the outside of the wall, we passed a man relaxing in the weeds, then came upon a locked gate to which was attached a mail box, as if someone had once (or still did) live inside. 

Street-cleaning/garbage truck facility restricts access to wall

At this point the wall continues as part of an Ama (trash-collecting, street cleaning) facility.  We decided we would not have been welcome inside.  So we tracked back, hoping to follow the wall from the inside, past the front of the Commonwealth Cemetery, then a bit downhill onto the road that curves (clockwise) around Monte Testaccio, with its cool collection of late-night bars.

The Aurelian wall is somewhere ahead.  To the right,
the wall of the ex-Mattatoio

Following the curving road, in a couple of minutes we ended up at the long, straight road that fronts the ex-Mattatoio (literally, Killing Center, what we call a slaughterhouse, once a stockyard).  Heading left, toward the Aurelian wall (not yet visible), graffiti covering a portion of the ex-Mattatoio, then right--there's just a glimpse of the wall here--along a row of houses occupied, we think, by new and poor immigrants, Romanians and others, perhaps Roma (Rom, "gypsies").

A glimpse of the wall, between the wall of the ex-Mattatoio (left) and housing (right)

NO TAV graffiti, inside the ex-Mattatoio

Dianne would go no further.  Bill took the first right, then a quick left, quickly observing a row of about ten home-made shacks and a big barking black dog (which was fortunately chained).  Bill, too, retreated--from danger and likely embarrassment--and our not-so-intrepid couple retraced their steps to one of several open entrances to the yards, heading to and beyond a heavily graffitied tower at the center of the complex (of the graffiti on the walls to the left, note the nice train with
the NO TAV sign: in northern Italy, especially, there's strong opposition to a proposed new high-speed train (Treno Alta Velocita) through the French and Italian Alps.

The wall ends--or appears to end.  Photo taken from train.
Despite the sign, we are still in Testaccio, not yet across
the Tevere in Trastevere.

At the far end of the large open area of the ex-Mattatoio there's another road, inside the complex, leading left.  Not useful, we decided, in locating the wall.  So we left the complex, ahead and just to the right, through an exit onto the Lungotevere Testaccio that wasn't open a year ago.  Walking left, the road ends abruptly after about 200 meters, at a railroad bridge over the Tevere.  We still can't see the wall, and-- from a train several days later--we saw why: the wall, too, ends abruptly before it reaches the river.

Along the Tevere.  If not part of the wall, what is it?

We're thinking that the wall planners didn't see any necessity for a wall along the river--a sort of natural barrier--but there is an existing wall-like section, including a tower, along the road that runs above the river here, and some - but not all - maps show the wall was indeed here.

Tent housing, along the bank of the Tevere

But (we're trying to think this through) if the Aurelian wall had been built along the expanse of river from the railroad bridge (to the south) to Ponte Sublicio/Porta Portese (to the north), then surely there would be visible remnants of the wall.  And there are none--except, possibly, that tower and related remains--or none to be seen from the road, anyway. Another theory - that the remnants of the wall became part of the now-high river embankments.  But, back to our trek: below the road, near a path that runs along the river bank, people are living amid weeds in tents and huts.  Not for tourists, not even us.

A favorite bar, at corner of via Galvani and via
N. Zabaglia.  Time for an aperitivo.  

Today's search for the wall at an end, we turned back into the ex-Mattatoio,  past the old stockyards and the giant Bambu' installation that is part of MACRO Testaccio, along the bars and clubs built into Monte Testaccio, to the next corner and one of our favorite bars.  We were lucky.  It was 6:05 p.m., and five minutes earlier happy hour had begun: an aperitivo and plenty to eat, a photo show of historic Testaccio, and all for Euro 4 per person.  What a city!


Bill   

Walking the (Aurelian) Wall II: Porta Metronia to Porta San Paolo

"City walls, to a properly constituted American, can never be an object of indifference; and it is emphatically 'no end of a sensation' to pace in the shadow of this massive cincture of Rome....even to idle eyes the prodigious, the continuous thing bristles with eloquent passages."  Henry James, 1873

The Aurelian Wall near Casa del Jazz.  Here, from the outside, a sloping giant, with doors and windows added
later, perhaps to serve "inside" residents

Thwarted. Inside of wall not accessible here

Each section of the 3rd-century Aurelian wall has its own pleasures and mysteries and delivers its own lessons.  RST blog readers may recall we are on a mission to walk the entire (once 19 km, or 12 mile) wall.  On this section, going (roughly) south and west from Porta Metronia, we discovered how much of the wall is inaccessible, especially from the inside. [Update:  a Google map includes this itinerary.]


That lesson was delivered immediately, when, exiting Porta Metronia, we found ourselves barred from the inside of the wall by a gate (and inside, a half dozen plastic dishes and cartons--someone is feeding the area's cats).

Seems like suburbia, except there's a wall

We returned to the outside, which here skirts one of Rome's newest and best kept urban parks: benches and fountains, joggers, walkers, thinkers.  How long, we wondered, could we sit on a park bench without a book, a newspaper, or a cell phone?

Old scaffolding inside the wall/no access

At Porta Latina, through which runs the ancient via Latina, we peek inside and hope for access, just a fence and yards of year-old scaffolding.  Outside, the wall is sometimes marred by a fence (presumably to protect passers-by from falling bricks) and marked by the Papal families who restored it at various times: here, the Barberini family, with their bees on the shield.

Remnant of an aqueduct

The next porta is a handsome one: Porta San Sebastiano, through which runs (well, not now, it's closed for repairs, to reopen in the next century), via Appia Antica.  Just inside (besides a guy taking a leak) is another arch, and a grand one.  Not part of the wall, it's one of few remnants of the Aquedotto Antoniniano, which once fed the baths of Caracalla.  On the porta itself, we found some chiseled crosses and the date 1622 - ancient graffiti?  This porta is the entrance to the one part of the wall where one can walk inside: the wall museum, an RST Top 40 site.

Maybe they own horses

The next opening in the wall is door-to-door automobiles, but it is, indeed, a porta: Porta Ardeatine.  EUR is a couple of miles to the left, connected by the multi-lane viale Cristoforo Colombo. The baths of Caracalla are a half mile downhill to the right.  We're still looking for access to the wall's inside, and we're still being denied: on this side, a fence guards a long, maintained field, someone's private estate we would guess, legal or "abusive" we can't say.

Homeless "shelter"/locked gate to inside of wall

And on the other side of viale Cristoforo Colombo, another locked gate, a cat, and a primitive plastic shelter used by the homeless.  On we go, still outside, past the Casa del Jazz (taken from the Mafia as part of a legal penalty, years ago).  The grounds on this section are better maintained, and the wall is designed differently, with wedge-shaped cutouts wedges at its top (see photo, top of this post).  We noticed several ground-level doors--certainly not part of the original defensive system, perhaps once used as exit/entrances by families living on the inside.

Florentine Pope advertising wall work

At a sharp right turn, more evidence of Papal interest, this time the Medici of Florence (all those fleurs-de-lys)  And further on, the brick façade removed to reveal the tufo--of different colors, perhaps different eras--beneath.

Stairway into upper San Saba

Finally, at the next porta, we can tuck ourselves inside.  Immediately, the wall shrinks--we're inside now, on higher ground.  As we follow the wall around the corner and down the hill, we enjoy peeks through the wall at soccer fields and, to our right, views of the little-known and curiously isolated community of San Saba, constructed in the early 20th century.

Porta San Paolo (and at left, the Piramid)

Ahead, the wall is simply gone, victim of Rome's automobiles, and then beyond, the magnificent Porta San Paolo, out of which runs via Ostiense (the road to Ostia); today this porta, too, houses a museum.  Historically, the piazza is well-known as the site of short-lived but furious resistance to the German occupation of the city in 1943.

Cafe' du Parc. Table service, but order inside.  

Even downhill, this wall-walking is hard work, and so we treat ourselves to a glass of wine at one of our favorite redoubts, the Café du Parc, with its long, now fenced-in outdoor space.  From our table, we enjoy a view of the Ostiense Post Office, one of four designed by noted architects during the Fascist era. This one--worth looking at from the front, and inside, too--is the work of Adalberto Libera and Mario De Renzi.  When it opened in 1935, Mussolini was there.

Bill

Inside the wall, San Saba just ahead; the wall seems short here, but it's because the ground is high.  The wall
is much higher on its "outside."