Nazis on trial in Italy
2004-04-20 11:48
Rome - Three former Nazi officers went on trial on Tuesday for one of Italy's worst wartime massacres, the August 1944 slaughter of 560 civilians in a village in Tuscany.
The defendants, Gerhard Sommer, Heinrich Sonntag and Alfred Schoneberg - all in their 80s - were not in court as they are also under investigation in Germany.
"Italian and international public opinion is focusing great attention on this trial, which must ascertain the truth and those who are responsible for the Nazi massacre," said Marco Montemagni, a member of Tuscany's regional government.
The massacre happened just days before advancing British troops swooped into the regional capital Florence.
Survivors say hundreds of Nazi troops surrounded the village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema and rounded up residents. In a four-hour period, they shot 560 people, mostly women and children, before burning their bodies and houses.
Local schoolchildren in the seaside town of La Spezia, where the trial is being held, observed a minute's silence early on Tuesday in memory of the victims.
A parliamentary commission set up by the government last year began investigations into why evidence which will be presented to the court remained buried for nearly half a century.
The case came to light in Italy only after a journalist stumbled across witness statements which had been locked away in a cupboard.
- AFP