History (49 page)

The days of The Thousand were past! The only one who occasionally paid any attention to Useppe was the mother of the executed boy; when it was dark, she would accompany him down to the latrine, if necessary holding his hand as Carulina used to. And one evening, in helping him pull up his pants, touching his fl little ribs, she said to him : "Poor little bird, I have a feeling you won't make it, you won't grow up. You're not long for this world. The war slaughters kids."

She entertained him, too, with a game, or rather a fairy tale accom panied by mime, which she had already used with her own children when they were little. It was always the same, and it consisted of this : as a beginning, she tickled the palm of his hand, saying :

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"Square, pretty square, Here passed a crazy hare,"

and then, pulling up his fi one by one, beginning with the thumb, she continued :

"This caught him, this killed him, this cooked him, this ate him,"

and reaching the little fi she concluded : "and this one was left all alone,

because for him there was none."

"Again," Useppe would say to her at the end of the story and she would start over at the beginning, while Useppe would look at her intently, hoping that, one of these times, the crazy hare would manage to escape, leaving the hunters empty-handed. But invariably the tale proceeded and ended always in exactly the same way.

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1944

JANUARY

In the cities of occupied Italy, and chiefl in Rome, the police set up special units, which employ professional sadists, German and Italian, with license to arrest, torture, and kill, at their whim, according to the Hitler system of "Nigllt and Fog."

In Verona, tl1e Fascist court of the Republic of Salo sentences to death the Fascist leaders guilty of having voted against the Duce in the July meet ing of the Grand Council. Among those sentenced is Ciano, the Duce's son-in-law. The sentence is immediately carried out.

Allied landing near Anzio blocked by vast German forces. The advance in Italy is held up at Cassino.

FEBRUARY-APRIL

After new ordinances of the Italian police, the Fascists, assisted by local informers, proceed to seek out and arrest Jews who eluded the previous Ger man round-ups.

In Rome, in reprisal for a partisan attack on an SS patrol (32 killed ), the German Command orders the massacre of 335 Italian civilians, whose bodies are fl into a cave ( tl1e Fosse Ardeatine ).

The potential of the Red Army steadily grows, through the increased effi of tl1e USSR war industry and shipments of Allied material. En gaged all along the front in a series of attacks (Stalin's ten off ), the Soviet troops advance victoriously westward, reaching the Czecho slovakian border to the south.

J UNE-JULY

With a landing in Normandy, opening a new western front against the Germans, the Allies begin the reconquest of France.

In Italy, there is a breakthrough on tl1e Cassino front; and resuming their advance from the south, tl1e Allies enter Rome.

The Italian resistance forces, in the part of the country still occupied by the Nazis, organize into a single army (Volunteers of Freedom Corps ), while the regular Italian troops of the Italian Liberation Corps, set up by the King and by Badoglio, take part in the Allies' actions.

From the East, the Russian troops continue their advance towards the Reich.

In the Reich, an assassination attempt against Hitler, organized by some high German offi fails. The conspirators are executed, along with other persons involved or suspect (about fi thousand ).

AUG UST-OCTOBER

On the western front, the Allied advance continues. The Al enter

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Paris. In Italy, they face the enemy along a new line north of Florence ( the Gothic Line) .

On the eastern front, a last-ditch German counteroff temporarily halts the Soviets on the Vistula; while beyond the river, the city of Warsaw, rising up against the Nazis, is destroyed in reprisal, its last remains burned, practically ceasing to exist ( 300,000 Poles massacred ).