Memories of Nazi-fascist massacres in two central Italian villages

This paper analyses accounts of Nazi massacres in two rural communities in central Italy, with the aim of examining what memory of the event has survived fifty years later. Interview data were collected in villages which had the same land-tenure system (Mezzadria) until the 1960s, but which were characterized by a different system of socio-economic stratification. The hypothesis developed here is that the patterning of memory has to be related to different social, occupational and residential identities of the groups concerned with the events. The narratives of survivors are compared in order to discern the different viewpoints which produced a veritable 'divided' memory of the massacre.