The story of this place
On 23 March 1944, partisans detonated a bomb on Via Rasella in occupied Rome, killing 33 German SS police. Hitler ordered ten Italians shot for each German. Within 24 hours, on 24 March, the SS rounded up 335 men and boys—Jews, political prisoners, resistance fighters, and random civilians—drove them to these disused quarry caves, and shot them one by one in the back of the head, then blew up the tunnels to hide the bodies. The victims ranged from teenagers to a 74-year-old. After liberation the remains were exhumed and the site made a national mausoleum. The commander, Herbert Kappler, was later convicted; the massacre remains one of Italy's deepest wartime wounds.