Dramatic Photos

Mindless brutality: guilty of hospitality

Bundesarchiv

On 27 May 1944, Ms. Angela Maria Rossi, a native of Alatri (FR) and living in Tecchiena, was hanged after summary trial in Fiuggi (FR), with the charge of attempting to poison with methanol German soldiers. In reality, the things were different: some LW soldiers of passage had entered the house of the poor woman, at km. 37 of the SS-155 Frosinone Fiuggi motorway, asking to eat freshly picked cherries. Soon after they also drank much hot milk, fresh from the cow. Not yet satisfied, they added a wild drinking of good ciociaro wine. Obviously, they were caught by strong intestinal pain due to indigestion. Even more stupid were the German military doctors who diagnosed an absurd poisoning. The woman with the eighteen year old son who helped her in the farmer hard work (and who managed to escape the surveillance) was brought to the German command of Fiuggi and sentenced to death. The tragic spectacle of her hanging to a trellis of the tramway Roma-Frosinone-Fiuggi was immortalized by German photographers, as well as it remains indelible in the memory of the inhabitants of the spa town, forced to assist at this "example." DVX