[NOTE: all photos “borrowed” except the last one in the Niccone valley]
I read everything I can find about what happened here in Umbria during the Second World War. It was a horrible time. Before I talk about what happened in Umbria a little overall background. The war had gone badly for Italy after the Allies invaded North Africa and then invaded Sicily. The Italian Grand Council had seen enough and Mussolini lost a vote of confidence from the King. He was arrested.
Italy surrendered to the allies in September 1943 and allowed the allies to land in Salerno, south of Napoli. Thing was, the Germans were still IN Italy and the Germans even brought new forces in through the Brenner pass. They prepared to dig in and fight. They treated Italy as an occupied country and freed Mussolini who set up a puppet state called the Italian Social Republic.
Italy declared war on Germany in October 1943. What ensued was horrible, Italian and allied troops moved up the Italian peninsula slowly pushing the Germans northward. It was two years of unrelenting warfare. And this was happening where Italians lived and tried to survive. You can imagine. But to complicate things, there was civil unrest within the Italian population with the Partisans fighting against Mussolini’s puppet state (in reality fighting the Germans who propped up that State).
Of course there was a lot more after that before the war ended in italy. But I also want to get to what happened in Umbertide. First I want give a bit of info about the rest of Umbria.
Orvieto was the first to be occupied. It is on the left south of the big Lago Trasimeno. It was very strategically placed between Rome and Florence. But the line was pushed north and the next German defensive line was Lake Trasimeno. Perugia was liberated in June 1944.
Next, an uplifting story was about brave priests in Assisi, and acts of moral courage during the war. Bishop Giuseppe Placido Nicolini, Father Aldo Brunacci, and Franciscan Father Rufino Niccacci built a secret network that provided Jews with false identity papers and sheltered them in monasteries and convents — saving approximately 300 Jews from the Holocaust. The papers were transported by Father Nicolini inside his cassock. The Germans never searched him. A famous Italian cyclist hid the papers inside the frame of his cycle. If they asked to search he said he had just gotten the bike “tuned” for a race and please don’t disassemble it. They didn’t. The Germans admired this famous cyclist and he was never caught.
Sheltering places were arranged in 26 monasteries and convents, and false transit papers were provided — many claiming the bearer was from southern Italy, an area already liberated by Americans. Father Niccacci dressed many of the refugees as monks and nuns, taught them Catholic ritual, and hid them in monasteries.
Even a German colonel, assigned to Assisi, Valentin Müller, head of medical operations, who was a devout Catholic, worked to spare Assisi from destruction.
As one Jewish survivor, Professor Emilio Viterbi, later said: “In the mass extermination of six million European Jews, in Assisi not one of us came to any harm.
Now for the dark side. The partisans were all up in the rugged mountains around Umbertide, Città di Castello and Gubbio, as well as other places on the peninsula. That is where the partigiani had their secret places to hide and their stockpiled arms. They actively undermined the Germans whenever they could. It was a dangerous business.
In Gubbio there is the story of the 40 martyrs. The policy of the Germans was if a Partisan killed a German they would kill 40 Italians in retaliation. That happened in Gubbio. A German soldier was killed by partigiani and they lined up 40 civilians against a wall and shot them. All ages, both sexes. There is a monument there now.
Here in Umbertide there were reprisals against an extended family of 12 members, innocent civilians and many children. They were rounded up and murdered inside their house in the Niccone valley. Ever since that massacre the house sat unoccupied up on the hill. A monument is beside the road now.
In the past few months I have noticed someone is renovating the house. No idea who. I asked around. I was dumbfounded. The house has stood empty 82 years. I thought it was a memorial, or that since 12 people were gunned down there people were too superstitious to live there. I would have second thoughts for sure. Would you? 😳
