NICCIOLETA FALLEN MONUMENT
FATHER ERNESTO BALDUCCI's PLACES
BIOGRAPHY
MASSACRE OF NICCIOLETA
This is a nazi-fascist massacre that took place between June 13 and 14, 1944 and during which 83 men were massacred. A military police unit composed of German officers and Italian soldiers arrived in Niccioleta to punish its inhabitants who, as had happened in many areas of the Grosseto area, had refused to present themselves at the Fascist and German police posts in Massa Marittima.
THE LOSS
Many of Father Balducci's childhood friends lost their lives in the massacre. Today some of them are buried next to Ernesto's grave. The memory of the friends and this massacre recurs frequently in Balducci's writings.
THE DREAM OF A THING
In the book Balducci recounts the Niccioleta massacre with emotion and remorse. He feels as a dark sense of guilt and an imperative that induces him to remain faithful to his origins and thus to work, both from the civil point of view and on the level of faith, so that the last truly are the privileged ones in the attention that is due them humanly, politically and culturally. Moreover, when the Santafiorese fallen were exhumed to be buried in their country, he was charged with giving the official funeral oration.
QUOTE
E. Balducci, “The dream of a thing”
"When the 23 coffins (...) were brought to our village, a shout went up from the crowd. I was squeezed in among the people. I was not a spectator. I was a traitor. I had left on a street where one passes for a revolutionary just for writing an article that can compromise his career.”
MUST-SEE
Niccioleta War Memorial
Tombstone to the Martyrs of Niccioleta
PICTURES
War Memorial
Tombstone to the Martyrs of Niccioleta
