Town Acquasanta Terme History The Pozza and Umito Slaughter
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THE POZZA AND UMITO SLAUGHTER In World War II Italian and Slav partisans on the della Laga Mountains gave life to a resistance movement against the German invader, which culminated in the Pozza and Umito slaughter in the winter of 1944. After the concentration camps were opened on September 8th 1943, Slav and Montenegrin soldiers took refuge in the mountains of Umito and Pozza. In these very locations partisans were already gathering. The head of the band of partisans at Pozza and Umito was the captain of the Carabinieri, Ettore Bianco. Two Englishmen and an American joined the Slavs and Montenegrins. They were helped by the women; most were mothers, girlfriends and sisters of Italian soldiers lost around the world. The winter of 1943-1944 was terrible and on March 16th, 1944 in Pozza, the partisans had organized regular shifts of duty, with men on the alert at strategic points. There was a lot of snow around and for this reason it was thought that nobody would risk climbing the mountain. Instead, an expedition made up largely of Germans was organized. The Germans and Fascists left Acquasanta at midnight, divided into three columns to encircle Umito and Pozza. They bore down in silence as the people slept. Twelve Italian partisans, seventeen Slavs, two British, one American and twenty Germans were killed. The Germans put their dead in a shed and blew it up. They took only the body of the commander away, tied to a tree trunk, along with the prisoners. When the Germans were forced to retreat by the advancing allies, episodes of violence occurred in Acquasanta as a consequence of what had happened. Bibliography:
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