The story of this place
Between 29 September and 5 October 1944, SS units under Major Walter Reder swept the villages around Monte Sole, south of Bologna, in a reprisal against the local partisan brigade. Rather than fighting the partisans, they systematically murdered civilians—shooting, burning, and grenading families in churches, cemeteries, and homes. At least 770 people were killed, the majority women, the elderly, and children; some 200 victims were under the age of twelve, including infants. Entire families were wiped out. It remains the largest single massacre of civilians in Western Europe during the war. Reder was tried and sentenced to life in 1951; the mountainside is now a memorial park to the dead.