Lee: Italy still in WWII pain

2008-10-02 16:09

Rome - US filmmaker Spike Lee answered accusations of twisting history in his new film Miracle at St Anna with a charge on Thursday that Italy has yet to heal the wounds of World War II.

"The visceral reactions in recent days make me think that the deep wounds that opened in Italy during the Second World War have not healed," he said in a comment published by the daily La Repubblica.

The film, which is set for general release in Italy on Friday, recalls the 1944 massacre of 560 civilians in the Tuscan village of Stazzema by retreating German soldiers.

It shows a member of the resistance collaborating with the Nazis and failing to warn the villagers of the Germans' advance.

Many veteran anti-Fascist partisans contest this depiction, and several dozen of them as well as survivors of the massacre staged a protest on Wednesday in a town near Stazzema where an advance screening was held.

Work of fiction

"It is an erroneous version," author Giorgio Bocca, a veteran partisan, wrote in an editorial in Wednesday's La Repubblica, a left-leaning daily.

"I am not the enemy of the partisans," Lee wrote, addressing Bocca.

"The only fact that we all agree on is that 560 human beings were massacred by the Nazis. Beyond that, anyone can have his theory and his point of view."

James McBride, author of the novel on which the film was based, said at a press screening on Tuesday that he was "very sorry if I have offended the partisans. I have enormous respect for them."

"It is, after all, a work of fiction," he added.

- AFP