New 180-km walkway will link Sant’Anna di Stazzema in Tuscany with Marzabotto in Emilia-Romagna.
A new long-distance walking route linking two of the most significant sites of Nazi-fascist atrocities in Italy has been launched ahead of this year’s Festa della Liberazione on 25 April.
The Cammino ’44 spans around 180 kilometres on foot through the heart of wartime Italy, linking Sant’Anna di Stazzema, in Tuscany, with Monte Sole near Marzabotto, in the Bolognese hills.
Conceived as a secular pilgrimage, it retraces one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century and aims to promote the values of liberty, tolerance and peace, news agency ANSA reports.A new long-distance walking route linking two of the most significant sites of Nazi-fascist atrocities in Italy has been launched ahead of this year’s Festa della Liberazione on 25 April.
The Cammino ’44 spans around 180 kilometres on foot through the heart of wartime Italy, linking Sant’Anna di Stazzema, in Tuscany, with Monte Sole near Marzabotto, in the Bolognese hills.
Conceived as a secular pilgrimage, it retraces one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century and aims to promote the values of liberty, tolerance and peace, news agency ANSA reports.Both sites were the scenes of two of the most brutal Nazi-fascist massacres of the second world war, occuring just months apart in 1944.
Sant’Anna di Stazzema massacre
In the village of Sant’Anna di Stazzema, 560 unarmed civilians, including around 130 children, were massacred on 12 August 1944.
The mass killing was carried out by Waffen-SS troops as they retreated north, with the help of Italian fascists disguised in German uniforms.
The soldiers rounded up villagers and refugees, locking them in barns and stables and executing them systematically with machine guns or by forcing them into cellars and throwing hand grenades inside, before setting fire to the whole village.
The massacre only became public knowledge in 1994, when almost 700 reports about the atrocity were found in a cabinet hidden in the basement of the military court in Rome.
Monte Sole (Marzabotto) massacre
Between 29 September and 5 October 1944, Waffen SS troops killed at least 770 Italian civilians – mostly women, children and the elderly – in the Monte Sole area in the Appenines near Bologna in north-eastern Italy.
The retreating Nazi troops, aided by Italian fascist collaborators, indiscriminately slaughtered at least 770 people in reprisal for the local support given to partisan freedom fighters.
The atrocity was the largest mass killing of civilians committed by the Nazis in western Europe during world war two.
Cammino ’44
The route follows the broad line of the Gothic Line – the wartime front that divided Italy in two – passing through the provinces of Lucca, Pistoia and Bologna, and is dotted with sites and memorials of great symbolic significance.
The project has been promoted by Liberation Route Italia which is funded by the Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna regional governments.
The organisation did not create new paths from scratch, but instead connected a network of existing trails, some already part of other walking routes, bringing them up to standard where necessary.
Symbolic launch date
The Festa della Liberazione – a national public holiday in Italy – marks the country’s liberation from German occupation and fascist rule at the end of world war two.
25 April was chosen as a symbolic launch date: from Saturday, the dedicated website (www.cammino44.it) will go live, allowing walkers from across the world to explore the routes and plan their journey.
A formal inaugural ceremony is planned for 20 June in Pietrasanta, from which the first official walk will depart.
Photo credit: federico neri / Shutterstock.com
