Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa's
calling ignoble the 1944 partisan attack on northern Italian
Wehrmacht soldiers in a street near the Trevi Fountain that
triggered the Ardeatine Caves reprisal massacre of 335 Italian
men and boys is unacceptable, centre left opposition Democratic
Party (PD) leader Elly Schlein said Friday.
"(They were) indecent words, unacceptable for the role he
holds," said Schlein of La Russa, whose Senate office makes him
the second highest public official in Italy after President
Sergio Mattarella.
On Hitler's orders the Nazis took 10 men for every victim in the
Via Rasella attack, totalling 330, then added in another five
arbitrarily, and killed them in the limestone quarries outside
Rome on the road to Ardea.
La Russa said the Via Rasella victims were not hardened SS men
but members of a marching band.
Italy's partisan association ANPI called La Russa's words
"shameful" and unworthy of his position.
La Russa is a senior member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's
rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, whose roots lie in the
postwar neofascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) party, whose
tricolour flame features in their logo.
Meloni has repeatedly and unequivocally condemned Fascism and
its "ignoble" racial laws against the Jews.
La Russa collects Fascist memorabilia including busts of
Mussolini.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
