Monument in Memory of the Massacre of the Fucecchio Marshland happened the 23 August 1944 in memory of the Tuscan Combatants who died for the homeland in the 1940-1945 war.

“The wonder and tragedy in the faces of the innocent!” This is the message which the artist Gino Terreni wants to convey with this magnificent monument, inaugurated in the presence of the President of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, in memory of the Massacre of the Fucecchio Marshland. Between the spring and summer of 1944, at the end of World War II, many Italian regions were hit by Nazi massacres.

What not everyone knows is that Tuscany was one of the worst affected areas due to its strategic location. After the liberation of Rome by the Allies, in fact, the German Army acted on an “aggressive” retreat having as key points the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines and the Partisans. In the summer of 1944, because of the bombing, many families from the provinces of Pistoia and Florence left their homes to go and take refuge in the Fucecchio Marshland. Throughout the area around the marshes the troops belonging to the German 26th Armoured Division were displaced. On August 22nd, many soldiers went to the swamp; on their return, two days after the massacre, they claimed to have killed 200 Partisans, omitting that in fact the totality of the dead was composed exclusively of civilians. At around 6:00am on August 23rd, Nazi troops headed to the farm called “La Tabaccaia” where many displaced people were staying: these people were forced outside where they were shot on the spot.

This is the place at which this event is commemorated, the wonder and tragedy of the 175 innocent people, mostly women, children and elders who were about to be shot by the same Nazi soldiers that they had hosted in their homes. Let the power of numbers remember: among the victims of the Massacre of the Fucecchio Marshland there were 62 women, 25 people over 60 years old, 16 children under 18 years old, 10 children under 10 years old and 8 children below 2 years.

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