Wardrobe of Shame

Hidden for more than 60 years in a wardrobe forgotten in a secluded room in the headquarters of the military attorney general in Rome were files containing the names of Nazis and Fascists of the Salò Republic, responsible for the hundreds of massacres in Italy during the last years of the Second World War between 1943 and 1945. Sant’Anna di Stazzema, Marzabotto, Fivizzano and many other towns were struck down by the barbarity that cost the lives of thousands of innocent people, on the run from the war. Because of that wardrobe, the assassins have enjoyed 60 years of impunity but now, for the first time in book form, the entire story of one of the most dramatic stories of Twentieth Century Italy is coming to light.

Franco Giustolisi (1925-2014), journalist, worked for the newspaper Il Giorno, then for RAI, the Italian public television broadcasting company and finally for the weekly magazine l’Espresso. He has co-written two inquiries with Pier Vittorio Buffa entitled Al di là delle mura (On the Other Side of the Walls, 1984) and Mara, Renato e io (Mara, Renato and Me, 1988). Stazzema awarded him honorary citizenship thanks to his work in the reconstruction of the mass slayings.