by Fr Francesco Motto, SDB
The attack on via Rasella in Rome, March 23, 1944, had resulted in the deaths of 33 enlisted German soldiers whose command demanded retaliation by shooting ten Italians for each of the German victims. In the afternoon of the following day, 335 men - young political prisoners, Jews, others arrested for small offenses - were taken from their prisons cells and Nazi headquarters to the old quarries of via Ardeatina through various entrances the Salesians of the nearby "Institute of St. Tarcisio" knew well, given that they sometimes went for walks with their students on the very site.
Several Salesians of the community, who served as guides at the nearby catacombs of St. Callisto, were able to watch the soldiers block the access roads and the trucks holding the condemned prisoners pass. The actual executions lasted from 15:30 to 20:00 of the 24th, followed by two powerful explosions, with the last shots going on until 2:30 pm of the following day. News of the executions was made public by the regime's press on the night of March 24.
The first confirmation of the Ardeatine massacre took place on Saturday, 25 March, when a Hungarian Salesian, Luigi Szenik held a brief conversation with two German soldiers, and overheard a phone call made by a German non-commissioned officer from inside the Salesian offices.
Once news broke, three Salesians of the community inspected the quarries: they saw the corpses, and through a Salesian "accredited" inside the Vatican, they made it known to the Pontiff. In the evening of Saturday, 25 March, and Sunday, 26, other Salesians visited the quarries to pray, bring flowers. Despite severe restrictions, the site of the brutal executions, by now fully identified, became the focus of pilgrimages of people in search of their loved ones. On 1 April, the Germans exploded a number of mines, permanently preventing access to the site.
In the second half of April, a complete list of victims reached the Director of the community of St. Callisto, who could thus provide accurate albeit sometimes terrible news to those who requested it.
