1. A surviving document, an official letter to the Commissario del Fascio di Schio dated 28 April 1944 and signed by Mario Plebani gives the names of eight anti-Fascists to be sent to labour camps in Germany. Plebani was one of the 54 killed in the ‘eccidio’ (killings). From the private archive of Ezio Simini.Google Scholar

2. In a work on the eccidio Silvano Villani states that those held were innocent of Fascist crimes, they were locals of the lower-middle class, more or less sympathetic to the RSI, L'eccidio di Schio luglio 1945. Una strage inutile, Mursia, Milan, 1994. A document of the Archivio dell'Istituto per la Storia della Resistenza nelle Tre Venezie, Padua, hereafter AISRV, Sez. I, B. 29, cart. ‘Relazione sugli avvenimenti di Schio del 6 luglio 1945’, dated 7 July 1945, issued by the Prefettura di Schio, defines the prisoners thus: 'almost all from Schio, ex-republican Fascists who were well known for their activity within the party after 8 September, collaborators, informers etc. as well as some Fascists of the pre-25 July period accused of violence.’ Google Scholar

3. See Crainz, Guido, ‘Il conflitto e la memoria. “Guerra civile” e “triangolo della morte”’, Meridiana, 13, 1992, pp. 17–55, p. 44, where he discusses an episode that was made symbolic of the ‘triangolo della morte’ phenomenon.Google Scholar

4. See for example Ranzato, Gabriele, Il linciaggio di Carretta. Roma 1944. Violenza politica e ordinaria violenza, Il Saggiatore, Milan, 1997.Google Scholar

5. The post-liberation regime had difficulty maintaining law and order within the prisons in this period and this situation of crisis facilitated this kind of operation. See Foot, John, ‘The Tale of San Vittore: Prisons, Politics, Crime and Fascism in Milan, 1943–1946’, Modern Italy, May 1998, 3 (1), pp. 29–31.Google Scholar

6. Estimates have differed according to intentions to minimize or exaggerate the figures. Mugnone, G. in Operazione rossa. Il processo della corte alleata per l'eccidio di Schio (Analisi storica degli eccidi e dei delitti isolati compiuti in Italia dal 1945 al 1948, Tipografia Gori di Tognana, Padua, 1959, p. x, claims 300,000 were killed in April 1945 alone. Giorgio Bocca in La Repubblica di Mussolini, Laterza, Bari, 1977, p. 339, estimates 12,000–15,000 killed in the period immediately following Liberation. For a more recent attempt to quantify the reprisals, and a discussion of past estimates, see Cesare Bermani's essay ‘Dopo la guerra di Liberazione (appunti per una storia ancora non scritta)’, Conoscere la Resistenza , eds Mauro Begozzi and others, Edizioni Unicopli, Milan, 1994, pp. 89–122. Bermani suggests that a figure of 2,000 might be closer to the truth (p. 105).Google Scholar

7. I have found the earliest references to the ‘triangle of death’ in La Stampa and Il Corriere della Sera of January and February 1947.Google Scholar

8. For further discussion of this question see Pavone, Claudio, ‘La continuità dello Stato. Istituzioni e uomini’, Alle origini della Repubblica. Scritti su fascismo, antifascismo e continuità dello Stato, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1995, pp. 137–10; Alessandrini, Luca and Politi, Angela Maria, ‘Nuove fonti sui processi contro i partigiani 1948–1953. Contesto politico e organizzazion e della difesa’, Italia Contemporane a, 178, 1990, pp. 41–62.Google Scholar

9. Piscitelli, Enzo, Da Parri a De Gasperi. Storia del dopoguerra 1945–1948, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1975, pp. 169–70.Google Scholar

10. Although elements of the PCI rank and file did support such acts and particularly after 1968 made their support apparent.Google Scholar

11. This is true, for example, of the Schio case, where aside from debates published in the press, publications relating to the killings have all issued from the right. Cf. Mugnone, , Operazione rossa; Serena, A., I giorni di Caino. Il dramma dei vinti nei crimini ignorati dalla storia ufficiale , Edizioni, Panda, Padua, , 1990; Villani, S., L'eccidio di Schio luglio 1945 (Milan, 1994).Google Scholar

12. Claudio Pavone's Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza , Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1991, which made acceptable for much of the left the notion of the Resistance as civil war, and acknowledged a ‘grey area’ of ambiguous and complex reasons for participation in the conflict, is the pioneering example.Google Scholar

13. Crainz, , ‘Il conflitto e la memoria’; Bermani, , ‘Dopo la guerra di Liberazione’; Woller, Hans, I conti con il fascismo, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1997; Storchi, Massimo, Combattere si può vincere bisogna. La scelta della violenza fra Resistenza e dopoguerra. Reggio Emilio 1943–1946, Marsilio, Venice, 1998. Much of the historiographical work published in the 1990s also uses oral history to elucidate questions of consensus, memory and responsibility in reconstructing contested episodes of violence—for example, Alessandro Portelli's L'ordine è già stato eseguito. Roma, le Fosse Ardeatine, la memoria , Donzelli, , Rome, 1999; and relating to the massacre of civilians at Civitella Val di Chiana in June 1944, Giovanni Contini, La memoria divisa , Rizzoli, , Milan, 1997; Paggi, Leonardo (ed.), Storia e memoria di un massacro ordinario, Manifestolibri, Rome, 1996.Google Scholar

14. For a history of the working class and militant character of Schio, see Simini, Ezio Maria, Di fronte e di profilo. Tutti gli schedati dalla polizia in provincia di Vicenza dal 1893 al 1945, Odeonlibri-Ismos, Schio, 1995, and, by the same author, ‘“Il nostra signor Capo”. Schio dalla Grande Guerra alla Marcia su Roma (1915–1922), Odeonlibri, Schio, 1980.Google Scholar

15. Formations controlled by the Action Party (PdA) and DC operated in neighbourin g zones.Google Scholar

16. See Ellwood, David W., Italy 1943–1945, Leicester University Press, Leicester, 1985, pp. 184–9.Google Scholar

17. Bolognesi's account of the killings, dated 8 July 1945, was appended to the official declaration of the CLN, Archivio di Stato di Vicenza, hereafter ASV, Documents of the CLNPV (Provincia di Vicenza), b. 15, f. 8, ‘Eccidio di Schio’.Google Scholar

18. Documents of the CLNPV. ‘The Anglo-Americans who have fought to liberate the world from Nazi-Fascism must understand the socio—political situation of the people of Italy.’ The local partisan leaders who defended the act in this way did not emphatically condone the continuation of violence. In interviews, partisans and partisan leaders emphasized the care that was taken to prevent summary executions from occurring from the moment of Liberation, with assurances instead that Fascists would be legally brought to justice.Google Scholar

19. Dunlop was an American but the other Allied officers involved in the case were British.Google Scholar

20. Dunlop's speech was delivered to the CLN on the morning of 9 July 1945 and printed in the Giornale di Vicenza , ‘La popolazion e e le autorità deploran o l'eccidio’ (10 July 1945, p. 1). It was also printed in other local and national newspapers—in Avanti!, for example, though not in L'Unità. Google Scholar

21. No public mention was made of the arrests, though letters of complaint were sent from the local CLN to the AMG. Cf., for example, ASV, CLNPV, b. 15, f. 8, ‘Eccidio di Schio’, letter dated 9 August 1945 written from jail by partisan leader ‘Randagio’; AISRV, Sez. II, b. 1, cart. ‘Corrispondenza con i singoli CLNP’, f. Vicenza, document of CLN of Schio to CLNPV complaining of the treatment of authorities by the Allied police; AISRV, Sez. II, b. n. 7, cart. CLNP, f. Schio; letter dated 10 August 1945 from CLNP to the CLNAI and CLNRV complaining also of the undermining of Resistance leaders.Google Scholar

22. They also made frequent use of the passive voice: ‘they were put against the wall and gunned down with automatic arms’, Allied press release, Il Giornale di Vicenza (10 July 1945, p. 1).Google Scholar

23. Communication of the AMG, ‘Gli autori dell'eccidio sono stati scoperti’, Il Giornale di Vicenza (19 August 1945, p. 2).Google Scholar

24. Communication of the AMG.Google Scholar

25. For example in the Gazzettino, published in Venice. This paper had had, since the clandestine period, strong links with the DC which at the time of the killings was virtually sole proprietor. Here, representations of the killings follow the Allied account—rejecting, for example, the argument that the act had any connection to a generalized disquiet, particularly following the news of Mauthausen and insisting upon a coldly premeditated act of violence.Google Scholar

26. He acquired a politicized view of events in particular during the ten years he served in jail where he frequented ex-partisans of the Emilia region. While he was serving his sentence Bortoloso typed his own account of the killings. This account was never published but the manuscript is held in the Biblioteca Comunale in Schio.Google Scholar

27. I wish to stress the critical distance I take from the partisans' use of the term ‘justice’ throughout this article.Google Scholar

28. The partisan formations were led by some of the hard-liners who had fought Fascism from its inception, but the mass of the younger partisans had grown up within the regime and were generally unpoliticized.Google Scholar

29. Interview with Pierina Penazzato, Schio (24 July 1996).Google Scholar

30. Interview with Guglielmino Bertoldi, Schio (30 July 1996).Google Scholar

31. These include the disinterment of a partisan (witnessed by most of the anti-Fascist population of Schio), apparently tortured and buried alive by the Fascists in the last days of the war.Google Scholar

32. Fourteen men arrested because accused of anti-Fascist activity were sent to Mauthausen in April–May 1944. The return of the sole survivor of the fourteen coincided with the showing in Schio of film footage of the Allied liberation of Auschwitz—bringing home to the local population the conditions in which prisoners existed and died (see Monticelli's article in this volume).Google Scholar

33. Interview with Valentino Bortoloso, Schio (30 July 1996).Google Scholar

34. ‘The political situation in the district of Schio can be considered to be normal even though the entire population has been and is still profoundly upset by the news about the very sad deaths of eleven citizens of Schio who were sent to the camps of Mauthausen and Gusen’, Archivio di Stato, Vicenza, Documents of CLNPV, b. 25, f. Varie 1. Letter from La Giunta Consultiva Mandamentale, Comune di Schio to CLNPV (5 July 1945), ‘Rapporto sulla situazione politica’. There is some discrepancy over the number of Schio citizens interned in the camps, some documents state fourteen, others, such as this, eleven.Google Scholar

35. Document of the AMG, dated 30 June 1945, National Archives, Washington, DC, US, ACC Italy Files, Province of Vicenza, 11209/115/89, emphasis in original.Google Scholar

36. Letter dated 2 July 1945, from Captain Chambers C.A.O. Schio to Captain Baker, P.P.S.O. Vicenza, National Archives, Washington, DC, US, ACC Italy Files, Province of Vicenza, 11209/143/73.Google Scholar

37. From a statement by Allied officials, printed in the article, ‘La scoperta degli autori dell'eccidio di Schio’, Il Gazzettino (21 August 1945, p. 2).Google Scholar

38. Interviews with Bortoloso, Valentino and Bertoldi, Guglielmino (30 July 1996). Bortoloso remembered a DC representative insisting upon the dismissal of charges.Google Scholar

39. AISRV, Sez. I, b. 29, cart. ‘Relazione sugli avvenimenti di Schio del 6 luglio 1945’, dated 7 July 1945, Prefettura di Schio.Google Scholar

40. Interview with Pierina Penazzato, Schio (24 July 1996).Google Scholar

41. See for example, ‘Doveri della stampa—i partigiani e la verità’, Il Giornale di Vicenza (23 August 1945, p. 1), which suggests that those involved in the killings were ‘false partisans’—in other words Fascists who had changed sides at the eleventh hour.Google Scholar

42. L'Unità, and the local leftist papers L'Amico del Popolo and Il Patriota had nothing to say about the killings until after 6 September, when the trial had begun. The coverage of the trial by L'Unità is best described as perfunctory.Google Scholar

43. AISRV, Sez. Interni—Questura Varie, f. Partito Democristiano. The letter is quoted in Franzina, Emilio, ‘L'azione politica e giudiziaria contro la Resistenza (1945–1950)’, in Isnenghi, Mario and Lanaro, Silvio (eds), La democrazia cristiana dal fascismo al 18 aprile, Marsilio, Venezia, 1978, n. 21, p. 251. See also Brunetta, Ernesto (ed.) (Istituto Storico della Resistenza nel Veneto), Il Governo dei CLN nel Veneto. Verbali del Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale Regionale Veneto 6 gennaio 1945–4 dicembre 1946, 2 vols, Neri Pozza, Vicenza, 1984, 2, Verbale n. 54 of 18 September 1945, pp. 333–6. This document highlights very effectively the contrasting political stands regarding the killings within the CLN.Google Scholar

44. Several documents testify to the significant grass roots impatience with the way that the partisans had been defended. See, for example, letter dated 21 September 1945 from ex-partisan Franco La Pira, Rome to the CLN of Vicenza appealing against the death sentence, ASV, CLNPV, b. 15, f. 8, ‘Eccidio di Schio’. In the Washington Archives another document reveals that this strength of feeling was at times barely held in check by the authorities, and was a source of concern for the AMG: National Archives, Washington, DC, US, ACC Italy Files, Province of Vicenza, 11209/143/73.Google Scholar

45. ASV, Documents of the CLNPV, b. 25, Letter from PCI Vicenza (Schio) to CLN provincial e Vicenza (12 August 1945) re meeting with the Governor regarding the Schio killings. Demands presented are: (1) that those still held for interrogation relating to the killings be released; (2) that a more humane system of arrest and search be used in future; (3) that those guilty be punished so that Schio might begin to retrieve its good name.Google Scholar

46. ASV, Documents of the CLNPV, b. 15, f. 8, ‘Eccidio di Schio’, Letter from CLNAI to CLNPV calling for good conduct on the part of the population if, as seems likely, the death sentences are withdrawn.Google Scholar

47. The final summing up of the Public Prosecutor, quoted in Aldo De Gregorio, ‘Maltauro condannato a 29 anni di reclusione’, Il Giornale di Vicenza (14 November 1952, p. 5).Google Scholar