560 unarmed people, including 130 children, were murdered.
In a message Mattarella said Sant'Anna di Stazzema is one of the “symbolic places of the tragedy of the Second World War”.
“[It has become an] emblem of civil redemption, of rebellion against the most ferocious and inhuman violence, of solidarity, of moral and social reconstruction,” he continued.
“It is a duty for our community to remember what happened seventy-nine years ago in Sant'Anna and the other hamlets of Stazzema, when Nazi SS soldiers, supported by local fascists, carried out one of the most heinous massacres of the conflict.
“It was a massacre of innocent lives. Women, old people, children - well over five hundred - were mercilessly killed.”
ANSA
