2004-04-14 In Pace (At Peace/Alone)
I sit on a porous, rocky curb. From behind wafts the smell of fresh cut grass. The drone of a weedwhacker on the hill competes with cars speeding down the road outside the wall. People shuffle by, the pebbles making a racket beneath their feet. Behind me, a monolithic, beige, concrete block hovers over a monument to 335 dead Italians in absolute silence.
This is the Mausoleo delle Fosse Ardeatine. When the Nazis occupied Rome, they threatened the resistance by declaring that they would take ten lives for every German death in the city. After 32 Nazis fell to the resistance, they rounded up 335 Romans, brought them out of the city to this place, then massacred them, and threw the bodies into a Fosse (fissure/tunnel/hole).
The monument, the product of a collaboration of designers, is somber and powerful. 335 slabs give the name, age, and occupation of each martyr, and have a photo enclosed in a sculpted wreath.
Renzos, Giuseppes, Francescos. Bus drivers, police captains, generals, architects, students. 18, 20, 50, 70. Number 28: Ferdinando Agnini, a 20-year-old student. Seeing his photo on the granite memorial, imagining what was going through his head as he was brought here, nearly moved me to tears. Silvio Barbieri, a 51-year-old architect. A man who was most likely just entering the prime of his career. His life rendered worthless, cut short by hatred, greed, and fear.
What good is war?
Tags: Archives, fosse, memorial, peace, photo, rome, war