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Schily to Honor Italian Nazi Victims

AFPAugust 9, 2004

Interior Minister Otto Schily will become the first member of a German government to attend a ceremony in honor of the victims of one of the worst Nazi massacres in Italy during World War II.

https://p.dw.com/p/5QIL
Schily will pay homage to the 560 people killed in the massacreImage: AP

Schily is expected to take part in a wreath laying ceremony at a monument to the 560 victims of one of the worst Nazi wartime atrocities in Italy, the Italian interior ministry said Monday.

Schily will be accompanied by his Italian counterpart Giuseppe Pisanu when he visits the monument in the village of Sant' Anna di Stazzema in Italy's Tuscany region.

The 560 civilians slaughtered in the Aug. 12, 1944 massacre in front of the local Catholic church included 120 children.

The two ministers will also visit a local museum dedicated to the Italian resistance movement which fought the occupying Nazi force.

Six surviving members of the SS division responsible for the massacre went on trial in absentia in the northwestern port city of La Spezia last month, charged with crimes against humanity.

The former SS officers, all in the eighties, live in Germany and did not attend the military court. The case has been adjourned until October.