The German defenders in the Lviv region took the lead in carrying out the order, and some 2,500 Italian officers and men were brutally slaughtered.
The massacre was carried out in the Lisnetsky Forest in Pogulyanka (now a forest reserve forest) in the Lviv region, in the fortress "Zitajer" and in the concentration camp "Yanovsky" near the city of Yavorov.
Alexander Zviakinsov's young aide then published an article in the popular Italian Daily newspaper titled "Italy, Where Are Your Sons?" article. That's why the Italian public at large learned about the tragedy. For various reasons, the Italian authorities have been careful to hide the facts from the public after the war. Marco de Paulis decided to find out the truth: where did the evidence of Nazi atrocities go?
Marco de Paulis (left) and Alexander Zviakintsov (right)
The answer was unexpected. He found several filing cabinets in the archives with doors facing the wall. When the doors of these filing cabinets were opened, thousands of documents recording the fate of Italian officers and soldiers on the Eastern Front slipped out of the filing cabinets. For such filing cabinets, Italy has an unwritten saying: that such cabinets are stored"
Ulterior motives
And in Italian legal history, these filing cabinets are called "
Cabinet of Shame
”。
Together with the Italian historian Paolo Pezzino, Paulis wrote a set of ten-volume books titled "Difficult Justice: Trials of German War Crimes from 1943 to 2013," which exposes the greatest tragedies suffered by the Italian people, namely, those horrific events that were artificially covered up.
Despite the facts, the testimony of witnesses, the Italian justices were not in a hurry to investigate the Nazi crimes
In the book, the author tells the story of a terrible massacre that took place in the village of Sant Annadi Statzza. To escape capture by the German SS, people flocked to the small village on the hill, hoping that they would not be discovered. However, death soon came upon them. The SS arrived and drove all the living people to the square with the butts of their rifles, including the elderly, women and children who had taken refuge in the church. The old priest was inconvenient to walk very slowly on his legs and feet, so he was shot directly in the church. According to official statistics, the death toll is at least 370, while the non-official statistics are 560.
Realizing that tragedy was coming, the second priest began begging the SS not to harm unarmed civilians. An SS officer walked up to him and fired a shot at his temple at close range. Then the machine guns and submachine guns "clicked" sounded, and the crowd in the square instantly turned into a mutilated corpse, and the air was filled with the smell of blood. When the screams and groans fell silent, the guns and bayonets in the hands of the SS resulted in those still struggling in pain. A newborn baby who was only 20 days old was shot in the head by an SS soldier, and then his mother was also killed in the same cruel way...
A new documentary also tells the story of this crime against humanity. Alexander Zviakinsov, who conducted the survey, also introduced this at the round table. The new documentary will be broadcast on Russian TV channels.
After the liberation of Italy, the Americans identified and identified the military unit that committed the crime as a battalion of the 16th Panzergrenadier Division of the SS "National Leader" of the Waffen-SS, which was tasked with slaughtering civilians in the village of Santa Ana di Staziza. Initially, the archives were sent to Washington, and then back to Italy. Along with other documents collected, a total of 694 documents were placed in the "Shame Cabinet" and sealed on the grounds of "temporary archiving". In 1994, on the 50th anniversary of Italy's withdrawal from the war, the "chest of shame" was opened and the documents were sent for investigation, but then there was no news. It was not until 8 years later, in 2002, that an Italian court sentenced 8 people to life imprisonment based on the facts of the massacre in the village of Santa Ana di Staziza.
Why were nazi crimes so covered up?
In Marco de Paulis's view, with the advent of the Cold War Iron Curtain shortly after the end of World War II, the United States and Britain drew up new war plans against the Soviet Union, and in order to re-arm Germany against the Soviet Union, they began to strongly oppose the criminalization of Nazi German war criminals. In 1947, the United States and Britain abandoned their policy of condemning the Nazis in Germany. The Italian government at the time, pressure from its new allies, helped cover up nazi crimes, and Italy, which was part of the same camp as the United States and Britain after the war, could not resist the general trend of the Cold War.
But the "angry prosecutor" withstood the pressure and continued to solve the case. Under his direct leadership, 515 cases of genocide against civilians and murders against Italian servicemen committed during the Second World War were investigated. In his view, it was the responsibility of the State to identify, convict and punish those who had committed heinous crimes. He continued to hunt down Nazi criminals, and to this day he is still struggling to extradite them from other countries back to Italy for trial.
Thanks to the efforts of Marco de Paulis, 61 people have been sentenced to life imprisonment. He said he hoped the German government would compensate the families of the victims of Nazi crimes. Unfortunately, the Italian judge's efforts were not taken seriously, and none of the resolutions made by the military tribunals in La Spezia, Verona and Rome received a Response from Germany.
Not everyone likes his stoic and persevering spirit. According to Alexander Zyvyazev, Paulis' life was in danger more than once. As a result, he was under 24-hour protection by a trained carbine (Italian national gendarme).
The truth cannot be hidden, and any secret will eventually be exposed to the sun. Italy finally recognized its hero Garibaldi and its own executioner. That was the original intention of the military prosecutor Paulis.
What crimes did the Nazi executioners commit against the Italians?
Marco de Paulis said that from September 8, 1943 to the end of World War II, a total of 23,479 Italian civilians, partisans and servicemen were killed by Nazis. Italian soldiers were massacred by the Nazis in many parts of the world, especially in the Balkans. As Professor Alberto de Bernardi, Deputy Director of the National Institute for the History of the Italian Liberation Movement, said, it was not until 1994 that the crime of mass murder of civilians committed by Nazi Germany in Italy could not be openly discussed and studied.
Asked if the investigation would continue, Marco De Paulis confessed: "There is no statute of limitations for war crimes because they are felonies against humanity." Therefore, I cannot remain silent about them, and justice must be done. I was struck by two things about the criminals, one is that they still live a normal life of impunity, and the other is that the relatives of the victims still live in endless pain and suffering. ”
Asked about the massacre participants defending themselves on the grounds that they were merely acting as soldiers obeying the commander's orders, Paulis said: "It was the perpetrators who carried out the crime orders. It is impossible for participants in mass killings of civilians, women, the elderly and children not to fail to understand what they are doing. Regardless of rank, those who give and carry out orders are held accountable for the crimes they have committed. Justice is not only legal, but also moral. ”
Decades later, does justice still make sense?
Paulis said, "Of course there is! If criminals continue to go unpunished, it will be a blasphemy against those who have been killed and tortured. Today, many people rewrite the human tragedies that took place in those years. Justice should be a tool to preserve the memory and conscience of future generations. ”