The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome (Palgrave Studies in Oral History)

Winner of the 2005 Oral History Association Book Award On March 24, 1944, Nazi occupation forces in Rome killed 335 unarmed civilians in retaliation for a partisan attack the day before. Alessandro Portelli has crafted an eloquent, multi-voiced oral history of the massacre, of its background and its aftermath. The moving stories of the victims, the women and children who survived and carried on, the partisans who fought the Nazis, and the common people who lived through the tragedies of the war together paint a many-hued portrait of one of the world's most richly historical cities. The Order Has Been Carried Out powerfully relates the struggles for freedom under Fascism and Nazism, the battles for memory in post-war democracy, and the meanings of death and grief in modern society. "On March 24, 1944, Nazi occupation forces killed 335 unarmed civilians in Rome in retaliation for a partisan attack the day before. The Order Has Been Carried Out is an oral history of the massacre, of its background and its aftermath. The moving stories of the victims, of the women and children who survived and carried on, of the partisans who fought the Nazis, of the common people who lived through the tragedies of the war, paint a many-hued picture of more than a century in the history of one of the world's most richly historical cities. These narratives, woven together by one of the foremost practitioners of oral history, tell of the struggles for freedom under Fascism and Nazism, of the battles for memory in Italy's postwar democracy, and of the meanings of death and grief in modern society."--Jacket. Front Matter....Pages i-xv Introduction....Pages 1-20 Front Matter....Pages 21-21 Places and Times....Pages 23-50 Twenty Years: Fascism and Its Discontents....Pages 51-69 Acts of War....Pages 71-93 Front Matter....Pages 95-95 Resistances....Pages 97-132 Via Rasella....Pages 133-171 The Massacre....Pages 173-199 Front Matter....Pages 201-201 A Strange Grief: Death, Mourning, and Survival in Rome....Pages 203-229 Politics of Memory....Pages 231-276 Born Later....Pages 277-300 Back Matter....Pages 301-329 On March 25, 1944, the newspapers in Rome published a release from the state news agency.