Children in the Italian partisan movement. Soviet heroes liberated the “eternal city.” Roman underground. Ada Gobetti: journalist, partisan and young mother

Original taken from rt_russian in “Captain Russo”: The story of a Russian officer who became a partisan in Italy during the Second World War

During the Great Patriotic War Soviet soldiers defended not only their homeland from the Nazis. Back in the days when the fascists had just begun to be driven out of the Soviet Union, Russian fighters fought against the Nazis in the very heart of Europe. About 5 thousand escaped prisoners of war from the USSR fought side by side with the partisans in Italy. Among them was a native of the Novosibirsk region, Vladimir Yakovlevich Pereladov, commander of the legendary Russian shock battalion, nicknamed Italian comrades"Captain Russo"

Upon learning of the Nazi attack on Soviet Union, Vladimir, then having just graduated from the 4th year of the Moscow Planning Institute named after Krzhizhanovsky, immediately enlisted in the militia. He and his classmates ended up in the 19th regiment of the Bauman Division, which was recruited mainly from the intelligentsia and students. The 19th Regiment defended the 242nd kilometer of the Minsk Highway ( Smolensk region): built fortifications and “washed their hands to bloody calluses.”

For Vladimir Pereladov, soldier's life was nothing new: having lost his parents early, he was brought up in the musical team of the Novosibirsk Rifle Regiment. The conditions in which the sons of the regiment grew up in those days were the most spartan; no concessions were made to teenagers. It is possible that it was the harsh youth that helped develop such qualities as endurance, courage and strong will. Subsequently, they saved the young man from death more than once.

In the fall of 1941, real hell began for the Bauman division: hurricane artillery fire from the Nazis, battles with enemy tanks. As soon as the Soviet soldiers managed to repel a tank attack, German bombers began to “iron” them. During one such raid, Vladimir managed to shoot down a Yu-87 bomber with a carbine, hitting the pilot’s cockpit.

And yet, no matter how bravely the defenders of the Minsk Highway fought, the defense line at 242 kilometers was destroyed, and the Bauman division ceased to exist as a combat unit. Scattered groups of surviving fighters made their way to their own through the forest thicket. In November, a small detachment of Vladimir Pereladov encountered a larger detachment of fascists in the forest. A fierce battle ensued. The Nazis had to call in aviation for help. It was then that Pereladov received a severe concussion from an air bomb explosion, was captured and ended up in the Dorogobuzh prisoner of war camp.

In his memoirs about these terrible days, Pereladov writes: “Once a week, the Germans brought two old horses into the camp, giving them to be eaten by prisoners of war. Two skinny nags for several thousand people. No medical care wounded soldiers and officers were not treated. Dozens of them died from hunger and wounds every day.” The prisoners spent the night under open air, and the guards amused themselves by shooting at them from towers.

In May 1942, prisoners of war were forced to work on the construction of dugouts for officers. German troops. When the camp water carrier fell ill, the authorities appointed Vladimir, who knew a little German, to this position. An old nag and a chaise with a wooden barrel were assigned to him. One day, when the horse moved far enough from the camp, Pereladov managed to get out barbed wire, supposedly in order to bring the animal back. He reached the edge of the forest and ran. Alas, in the forest Vladimir came across a detachment of SS men. He tried in vain to explain to them that he had gone to look for a runaway horse (which, indeed, was soon found). But they didn’t believe him and beat him half to death.

The dying Vladimir was returned to the camp and thrown into a pit - as a warning to others, in order to suppress any thoughts of escape among the prisoners. But his comrades, among whom were doctors who were prisoners of war, pulled him out of the other world.

In the summer of 1943, Vladimir Pereladov, along with other Russian prisoners, was taken to northern Italy to build defensive fortifications along the ridge of the Apennine Mountains (“Gotha Line”). The local population, who hated the Germans, treated the Russians who found themselves in Hitler's slavery with great sympathy, bringing them food and clothing. More importantly, it was in this region (the provinces of Piedmont, Liguria, Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Veneto) that the main forces of the Italian partisans were concentrated. They carried out sabotage against the Germans and Mussolini's Blackshirts, organized ambushes on small enemy garrisons and convoys, and rescued prisoners taken to build fortifications. Among those who were helped was Pereladov, who worked in a camp near the town of Sassuolo. In September 1943, Vladimir was finally free; Guirino Dini, an elderly bicycle factory worker, organized his escape.

Exhausted, exhausted by hard work, Vladimir found himself in the house of his savior and his wife Rosa. Their son Claudio, drafted into Mussolini's army and sent to Eastern Front, died at Stalingrad, and since then Guirino Dini became a partisan liaison in Sassuolo, and Rosa became his devoted assistant. Having lost their own son, the elderly couple surrounded the Russian fugitive with touching care, generously sharing their meager food supplies with him until he gained enough strength to hold a weapon in his hands again. “My Italian parents,” that’s what Vladimir called the Dini couple.

Italy, officially an ally of Germany, paid tribute to the Nazis in blood: men and young men were sent to the Eastern Front to die for interests alien to them, and to work in Germany, where their position was not much different from slavery. Attempts to resist the treacherous regime of Mussolini were severely punished. The Resistance movement became truly national by the summer of 1943, when the Nazis brutally suppressed the uprising in Rome and central Italy.

Pereladov decided that he could beat the enemy in Italy no worse than in the Smolensk region, and in November 1943, with a guide, he went to the mountains to visit the partisans, carrying a challenge note from Guirino Dini. He was accepted into the detachment by the commander of the partisan forces of the province of Modena - Armando (real name - Mario Ricci).

The first task that Pereladov completed as commander of a partisan group was to blow up a bridge. But a much greater success soon followed: at the beginning of winter, the partisans, among whom the brave Russian officer was now fighting, captured an entire battalion of fascist Blackshirts in the village of Farassinoro, obtaining valuable supplies of food and weapons. As for the fate of the captured fascists, those of them who were not seen in reprisals against civilians were disarmed and released or exchanged for partisans and their supporters who were languishing in prison.

The successful operation could not help but inspire Vladimir and his comrades: in the following months they freed several dozen Soviet prisoners of war, from whom they assembled a detachment that soon became known as the Russian Shock Battalion. “Not a day passed,” writes Pereladov, “that the partisan detachments of our, and not only ours, zone were not replenished with more and more new fighters and officers who fled from German captivity. They came not only accompanied by Italian messengers and guides, but also on their own.”

With the onset of spring 1944, more and more Italian patriots and fugitive Soviet prisoners of war began to arrive in the detachment. The partisans moved on to major military operations. In northern Italy, large zones liberated from the Nazis and fascists - “partisan republics” - appeared. The Russian partisan battalion was involved in the emergence of one of them - the “Montefiorino Republic”. In May 1944, a native of the city of Udomlya, Anatoly Makarovich Tarasov, joined the Russian battalion, who also managed to gain fame among the Italians as a brave fighter.

With the defeat of the fascist garrison in Montefiorino, most of the roads vital for the Nazis were under the control of the partisans, and they, realizing the danger, went on the offensive. At dawn on July 5, 1944, a fascist punitive detachment from the SS division "Hermann Goering", armed with mountain cannons, mortars and heavy machine guns, invaded the partisan zone near the village of Piandelagotti.

The Russian battalion was supposed to go around the Germans from the rear, cut them off from vehicles and guns, and then, at a prearranged signal, simultaneously with their Italian comrades, strike the enemy. But the Germans, having crushed the barrier of Italian partisans, invaded the village, where they committed a real massacre, and the Soviet detachment had to knock out Nazi bandits from the burning village. This is how Perladov himself describes the fight: “This fight could have been my last. In my haste to get ready, I forgot to take off my red jacket, which I wore, like many commanders of partisan detachments, and, therefore, was a clearly visible target. I saw a fan of bullets digging into the ground almost at my very feet (we were advancing from the mountain), the next moment I was descending from the mountain already at the “fifth point”. Another burst of fire from an SS man holed up in a nearby bush went over his head.”

Having occupied the village, the Soviet soldiers saw a terrible picture: the streets were strewn with corpses... Loot was lying everywhere, which the Nazis did not manage to take with them. Captured SS men were shot near the walls catholic church. Only then did frightened residents begin to come out of their homes to look at their saviors. Their amazement and delight knew no bounds when they saw that they were Russians. The German command subsequently spread a rumor that the detachment was destroyed not by partisans, but by an airborne assault of the Soviet Army. A week later, the Nazis announced a reward for Pereladov’s head - 300 thousand lire.

From that moment on, the Russian battalion began to quickly replenish itself, and not only from former Soviet prisoners. Fighting alongside them was a platoon of Czechoslovaks, a section of Yugoslavs, several Englishmen, an Austrian, Karl, and one black American soldier named John.

At the end of July 1944, the time came for the resistance fighters hard times: The Nazis launched a massive offensive. The forces turned out to be unequal: the fascists threw three full-blooded divisions against Armando’s 15,000-strong partisan army, while the allies broke their word and never went on the offensive in Northern Italy. So the Russian battalion was left almost without food and ammunition.

The partisans took up defensive positions on the outskirts of the village of Toano in order to delay the German column advancing towards Montefiorino. The enemy used artillery and mortars, and the first casualties appeared in the partisan detachments. A group of Nazis broke through the defense line and the partisans, jumping over the parapet of the trenches, rushed into a counterattack.

“Aleksey Isakov, originally from the North Caucasus, was killed. Almost at point-blank range, he destroyed three fascists, and when he ran out of ammunition, he crushed the head of the fourth with a machine gun, and at that moment an enemy bullet hit him in the face. This is how a wonderful comrade in battle, our “Usach”, as we called him for his beautiful guards mustache, died... In the same counterattack, Karl, our “Austrian”, was seriously wounded. He died three days later. This man was previously in the fascist army. In May 1944, he voluntarily went over to the side of the partisans and participated in many military operations, showing an example of self-discipline and great courage,” Pereladov writes in his book “Notes of a Russian Garibaldian.”

Having repulsed the German offensive, the Russians and Italian partisans They planned to break the blockade, but they managed to avoid a real battle thanks to the work of scouts. During the night, the last civilians of Montfiorino left with them. When leaving the encirclement, one person died - Pavel Vasiliev, a fellow countryman of Pereladov, originally from the Novosibirsk region. Pereladov's battalion moved to the province of Bologna, as part of the Sixth Garibaldi Brigade. They already knew about the successes of the Russian detachment and greeted them very cordially.

In October, the commander of all partisan formations in the province of Modena, Mario Ricci (Armando), with a small detachment crossed the front line to establish contact with American troops. Following the next German offensive, the Russian shock battalion was forced to follow. On the night of December 13-14, the soldiers crossed the Tuscan Pass in the area of combat operations of the 5th American Army, destroying a fascist pillbox. Shooting began from both the German and American sides. A stray bullet wounded Andrei Prusenko. But there were no more casualties. In the morning, the Russian battalion was met by Italian partisans sent by American troops to clarify the situation after a night firefight.

“When the detachment headed to the place designated for rest, the partisans suddenly awakened a long-forgotten sense of formation. Lieutenant I.M. Suslov sang “Across the valleys and across the hills.” The whole column took up the chorus... Local residents and American soldiers even seemed to look at us with envy. “Russian soldiers are coming,” one could read on their faces. Some smiled welcomingly, waved their hands, others frowned, seeing how bravely and smartly the Russian shock partisan battalion walked through the streets of the Italian town,” writes Pereladov’s associate Anatoly Tarasov in the book “Italy in the Heart.”

Brigadier General John Colley gave the Garibaldians a magnificent reception. But subsequently, the Americans did not want to release the Russian partisans to join the Italians under the command of Armando, because they wanted to recruit them into the American army. But no matter how they tempted Pereladov with generous rewards, they received nothing but indignation in response.

The school building where the detachment was located was soon taken under guard by the Americans, and Pereladov had to stubbornly insist that he be sent to the disposal of the Soviet military mission. At first he was taken to Livorno, but it was not possible to contact the mission from there. The American command decided to take him to Florence, promising to transport the entire detachment there. Upon arrival in Florence, the Russian partisans were forcibly disarmed, promising to return the weapons the next day. But they did not keep their words: the armed communists caused too much fear among the Americans.

Passing through Rome, the Russians were sent on buses to Naples. The former partisans were loaded onto an English warship, but they were taken not to the USSR, but to Egypt. Until the end of March 1945, they lived in a military tent camp and only on the morning of April 1, 1945, after a long journey, they saw the rare lights of dilapidated Odessa.

Vladimir Pereladov did not see the scarlet flag over the Reichstag. While the circumstances of his captivity were being clarified, he, like many former prisoners of war, was sent to prison, but, fortunately, he did not stay there long. After his release, the authorities allowed him to graduate from college in the capital, after which former partisan went to the city of Intu to work in distribution at a coal plant.

The Italians have not forgotten their Russian comrade. In 1956, a delegation of former Italian resistance fighters led by Armando visited Moscow. The purpose of their trip was primarily to meet with “Captain Russo”. A telegram with a challenge was sent to Inta, and Pereladov returned to the capital (now forever) to hug his friends.

For military services, Vladimir Pereladov received the Order of the Red Banner of Battle and was twice nominated for the highest award of the Italian partisans - the Garibaldi Star for Valor. He described his amazing adventures on Italian soil in the book “Notes of a Russian Garibaldian.”

During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet soldiers defended not only their homeland from the Nazis. Back in the days when the fascists had just begun to be driven out of the Soviet Union, Russian fighters fought against the Nazis in the very heart of Europe. About 5 thousand escaped prisoners of war from the USSR fought side by side with the partisans in Italy. Among them was a native of the Novosibirsk region, Vladimir Yakovlevich Pereladov, commander of the legendary Russian shock battalion, nicknamed “Captain Russo” by his Italian comrades.

Having learned about the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, Vladimir, who had just completed his 4th year at the Krzhizhanovsky Moscow Planning Institute, immediately enlisted in the militia. He and his classmates ended up in the 19th regiment of the Bauman Division, which was recruited mainly from the intelligentsia and students. The 19th Regiment defended the 242nd kilometer of the Minsk Highway (Smolensk Region): they built fortifications and “washed their hands to bloody calluses.”

For Vladimir Pereladov, soldier's life was nothing new: having lost his parents early, he was brought up in the musical team of the Novosibirsk Rifle Regiment. The conditions in which the sons of the regiment grew up in those days were the most spartan; no concessions were made to teenagers. It is possible that it was the harsh youth that helped develop such qualities as endurance, courage and strong will. Subsequently, they saved the young man from death more than once.

In his memoirs about these terrible days, Pereladov writes: “Once a week, the Germans brought two old horses into the camp, giving them to be eaten by prisoners of war. Two skinny nags for several thousand people. No medical assistance was provided to the wounded soldiers and officers. Dozens of them died from hunger and wounds every day.” The prisoners spent the night in the open air, and the guards amused themselves by shooting at them from towers.

In May 1942, prisoners of war were forced to work on the construction of dugouts for officers of the German troops. When the camp water carrier fell ill, the authorities appointed Vladimir, who knew a little German, to this position. An old nag and a chaise with a wooden barrel were assigned to him. Once, when the horse wandered far enough from the camp, Pereladov managed to go beyond the barbed wire, ostensibly in order to bring the animal back. He reached the edge of the forest and ran. Alas, in the forest Vladimir came across a detachment of SS men. He tried in vain to explain to them that he had gone to look for a runaway horse (which, indeed, was soon found). But they didn’t believe him and beat him half to death.

Exhausted, exhausted by hard work, Vladimir found himself in the house of his savior and his wife Rosa. Their son Claudio, drafted into Mussolini's army and sent to the Eastern Front, died at Stalingrad, and since then Guirino Dini became a partisan liaison in Sassuolo, and Rosa his devoted assistant. Having lost their own son, the elderly couple surrounded the Russian fugitive with touching care, generously sharing their meager food supplies with him until he gained enough strength to hold a weapon in his hands again. “My Italian parents,” that’s what Vladimir called the Dini couple.

The successful operation could not help but inspire Vladimir and his comrades: in the following months they freed several dozen Soviet prisoners of war, from whom they assembled a detachment that soon became known as the Russian Shock Battalion. “Not a day passed,” writes Pereladov, “that the partisan detachments of our, and not only ours, zone were not replenished with more and more new soldiers and officers who had escaped from German captivity. They came not only accompanied by Italian messengers and guides, but also on their own.”

Having occupied the village, the Soviet soldiers saw a terrible picture: the streets were strewn with corpses... Loot was lying everywhere, which the Nazis did not manage to take with them. The captured SS men were shot near the walls of the Catholic Church. Only then did frightened residents begin to come out of their homes to look at their saviors. Their amazement and delight knew no bounds when they saw that they were Russians. The German command subsequently spread a rumor that the detachment was destroyed not by partisans, but by an airborne assault of the Soviet Army. A week later, the Nazis announced a reward for Pereladov’s head - 300 thousand lire.

At the end of July 1944, difficult times came for the Resistance fighters: the Nazis launched a massive offensive. The forces turned out to be unequal: the fascists threw three full-blooded divisions against Armando’s 15,000-strong partisan army, while the allies broke their word and never went on the offensive in Northern Italy. So the Russian battalion was left almost without food and ammunition.

Having repulsed the German offensive, Russian and Italian partisans planned to break the blockade, but they managed to avoid a real battle thanks to the work of scouts. During the night, the last civilians of Montfiorino left with them. When leaving the encirclement, one person died - Pavel Vasiliev, a fellow countryman of Pereladov, originally from the Novosibirsk region. Pereladov's battalion moved to the province of Bologna, as part of the Sixth Garibaldi Brigade. They already knew about the successes of the Russian detachment and greeted them very cordially.

Vladimir Pereladov did not see the scarlet flag over the Reichstag. While the circumstances of his captivity were being clarified, he, like many former prisoners of war, was sent to prison, but, fortunately, he did not stay there long. After his release, the authorities allowed him to graduate from college in the capital, after which the former partisan went to the city of Intu to work in distribution at a coal plant.

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Origins of the movement

On initial stage The resistance movement was formed on the basis of disparate groups spontaneously formed by representatives political parties, banned by the fascist regime of Italy, including monarchist-minded former officers royal army. Later, the movement was taken under control by the National Liberation Committee (Italian. Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, CLN), created on September 9, 1943 by representatives of six parties: communist, Christian democratic, party actions[remove template], liberal, socialist and labor democratic parties. Committee national liberation coordinated his activities with the ministers of King Victor Emmanuel III and representatives of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. Committee for the Liberation of Northern Italy (English) Russian was created behind German lines and enjoyed the loyalty of most partisan units in the region. .

The main forces of the Resistance were represented by three main groups: the Garibaldi Brigades (communists), Justice and Freedom (English) Russian" (associated with the Action Party), and the Matteotti Brigade (socialists). In addition to them, they acted small squads, aimed at Catholics and monarchists, such as “Green Flame”, Di Dio, Mauri (English) Russian, Franks (founded by E. Sogno (English) Russian), as well as anarchist and apolitical groups. Relations between the various Resistance groups were not always friendly. For example, in 1945, in the province of Udine, there was a skirmish between a detachment from the Garibaldi Brigades and a detachment of the Action Party from Ozoppo, which led to casualties.

Large contingents of the Resistance movement operated in the mountainous regions of the Alps and Apennines, there were also partisan units in the plains, as well as an underground in major cities Northern Italy. For example, in the Montekino castle (English) Russian in the province of Piacenza, the headquarters of the partisan groups "Patriotic Action Groups" (GAP) and "Patriotic Action Units" (SAP) were located, which regularly organized acts of sabotage and guerrilla warfare, mass strikes and propaganda actions. Unlike the French Resistance, women played a large role in the Italian Resistance, both in combat units and in the underground.

An important area of activity of the Italian Resistance was facilitating escapes and harboring escaped prisoners of war of the anti-Hitler coalition troops (according to some estimates, the number of internees in Italy before September 8, 1943 was about 80 thousand): Resistance figures helped escaped prisoners of war reach the borders of neutral Switzerland or the location of Allied troops, in including through routes previously used by smugglers.

The Italian Jewish community has created its own underground organization - DELASEM (English) Russian(acronym for Italian. Delegazione per l"Assistenza degli Emigranti Ebrei - Delegation to help Jewish emigrants) led by Lelio Valobra (English) Russian, which operated throughout the occupied territory of Italy. It included not only Jews, but also some Roman Catholic bishops, clergy, laymen, police officers and even Wehrmacht soldiers. After being pressured by Nazi Germany Mussolini's government recognized the Jews as a "hostile nation", DELASEM supported local Jews, providing them with food, shelter and material assistance. Many Italians who collaborated with DELASEM (563 as of January 1, 2013) have been awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations.

Resistance in the Italian Armed Forces

The first acts of armed resistance German occupation followed the conclusion of an armistice between Italy and the Allied forces on September 3, 1943. The most famous event There was a performance on September 3 in Rome by units of the Italian army and carabinieri. Royal Army units in particular mechanized brigade of Sassari ru en, mechanized brigade of Granatieri ru en, division Piave ru en, Panzer Division Ariete ru en, 131st Tank Division, 103rd Motorized Rifle Division ru en and division "Wolves of Tuscany" ru en in addition to carabinieri, infantry and coastal artillery were deployed throughout the city and along the roads leading to it. Units of the Wehrmacht airborne forces and motorized infantry were initially driven back from Rome, but after some time, relying on superiority in armored vehicles, they regained their lost positions.

Guerrilla movement

Participation of foreigners in the resistance movement

Not only Italians fought in the ranks of the Italian Resistance. The Resistance units were joined by deserters from Wehrmacht units, escaped prisoners of war from the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, as well as special units of Anglo-American troops deployed to the Italian rear, including units of the Office of Special Operations, the Special Air Service and the Office of Strategic Services. The names of some members of the Anglo-American intelligence services who fought in the Italian Resistance subsequently became known to the public - among them the mountaineer and traveler Bill Tillman, the journalist and historian Peter Tompkins, the Royal Air Force pilot Manfred Zernin and Major Oliver Churchill.

The exact number of former Wehrmacht soldiers who fought in the Italian Resistance is difficult to estimate, since for reasons of safety of their relatives remaining in Nazi Germany, they preferred to hide their true names and origins. For example, the former Kriegsmarine captain Rudolf Jacobs is famous (Italian) Russian, who fought in the Garibaldi brigade "Ugo Muccini" and died in 1944.

Spanish anti-fascists, Yugoslavs, Dutch, Greeks, Poles, and representatives of the peoples of the USSR also fought in the Italian partisan detachments. The Slovenian by nationality Anton Ukmar (partisan nickname - “Miro”), born in the municipality of Trieste and commander of the Garibaldi division “Cichero”, Serbian Grga Čupić (nickname - “Boro”), commander of the division “Mingo” in Liguria, gained fame.

In some areas of Italy, Resistance units played a major role, in which fugitive Soviet prisoners of war fought, the total number of whom is estimated at about 5 thousand, of whom every tenth died (see, for example, Gevork Kolozyan, Mehdi Huseyn-zade).

As part of the Garibaldian brigade named after Vittorio Sinigaglia of Italian partisans, the Stella Rosa company was formed, in which over 60 Soviet prisoners of war fought. The first company commander was "Lieutenant Giovanni" (Soviet pilot, an Air Force lieutenant named Ivan, killed in battle, identity unknown), and after his death - Ivan Egorov

In the northeast of Italy, in Liguria, an Italian-Russian sabotage detachment (BIRS) operated. His fighters carried out sabotage: explosions of bridges, highways and railways, attacked columns of German troops. In July 1944, Soviet prisoners of war escaped from the working team of the prisoner of war camp, among them was Fyodor Poletaev (Italian nickname Poetan), later the National Hero of Italy.

Of the Soviet prisoners of war who fought in the ranks of the Italian partisans, four - Fyodor Poletaev, Nikolai Buyanov, Daniil Avdeev, Fore Mosulishvili - were awarded highest award Italy for feat on the battlefield - gold medal “For military valor”.

April 1945 uprising and execution of Mussolini

In the second half of April 1945, the battles on the German front entered their final phase: Soviet Army On April 16, the Berlin operation began, and the Anglo-American troops in Italy, having broken through the front at Ferrara on April 17, were preparing to enter the Po Valley. Under these conditions, on April 18, a strike began at the enterprises of Turin, which quickly spread to all cities of Northern Italy and soon developed into armed uprisings. Bologna rebelled on April 19, Modena on April 22, and Reggio Emilia on April 24.

On the morning of April 27, near the village of Musso, the column was stopped by a partisan patrol of the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade and began an inspection. According to the agreement with allied forces, the partisans freely allowed the retreating Wehrmacht units into Switzerland, detaining only the Italians. When inspecting the truck, partisan Umberto Lazzaro identified the Duce, after which Mussolini was escorted to the village of Dongo, where he spent the night in a peasant house. The circumstances of Mussolini's execution are not fully understood. It is believed that the leadership of the Resistance (in particular, one of the communist leaders Luigi Longo) decides to execute Mussolini, and the corresponding order was given to Walter Audisio (partisan nickname - “Colonel Valerio”). According to the official version, Mussolini and Clara Petacci were shot on the 28th, at 16:10 at the gates of the villa in Giulino di Mezzegra, according to other sources - at 12:30. The corpses of Mussolini and Petacci were later taken to Milan and hanged upside down near Milan Central Station. After this, the ropes were cut, and the bodies lay in the gutter for some time. On May 1, Mussolini and Petacci were buried in Milan's Musocco Cemetery (Cimitero Maggiore), in an unmarked grave in a poor lot.

Notes

The Italian Army 1940-45 (3) Osprey Men-at-Arms 353 ISBN 978-1-85532-866-2
H-Net Review: Andrea Peto On Women and the Italian Resistance, 1943-45
British prisoners of the Second World War and the Korean War | The National Archives (undefined) Archived from the original on April 30, 2013.
Statistics - Yad Vashem (undefined) . Retrieved June 30, 2016. Archived April 30, 2013.
Incerti, Matteo. Il Bracciale di Sterline - Cento bastardi senza gloria. Una storia di guerra e passioni. - Aliberti Editore, 2011. - ISBN 978-88-7424-766-0.
G. Bocca, Storia dell'Italia partigiana, p. 332.
http://www.lavita-odessita.narod.ru/partigiani.html#1.11 Soviet soldiers in the Italian Resistance
J. Sinigaglia. On the land of Italy // “Red Star”, No. 76 (18663) dated April 2, 1985. p. 3
Fedor Andrianovich Poletaev. Biographical sketch. Literature Index (undefined) . Committee for Culture and Tourism of the Ryazan Region. Ryazan regional universal scientific library them. Gorky (January 1, 2009). Retrieved May 11, 2016.
Basil Davidson, Special Operations Europe: Scenes from the Anti-Nazi War(1980), pp. 340/360
Day of liberation from fascism in Italy - April 25. History and features of the holiday in the project Calendar of Holidays 2013 (undefined) Archived from the original on April 30, 2013.
BBC NEWS | Europe | Mussolini heir calls for inquest (undefined) . Retrieved April 23, 2013. Archived April 30, 2013.

Literature

In Russian

Battaglia R. History of the Italian Resistance Movement (8 September 1943 - 25 April 1945). Per. from Italian. - M.: Publishing house foreign literature, 1954. - 660 p.
Secchia P., Moscatelli C. Monte Rosa descended to Milan. From the history of the Resistance Movement in Italy. Per. from Italian. - M.: Politizdat, 1961. - 404 p.
Galleni M. Soviet partisans in the Italian Resistance movement. 2nd ed., rev. and additional.. - M.: Progress, 1988. - 229 p.
Pereladov V. Ya. Notes of a Russian Garibaldian. - Novosibirsk: Novosibirsk Book Publishing House, 1988. - 222 p.

In Italian

Roberto Battaglia, Storia della Resistenza italiana, Torino, Einaudi, 1964.
Enzo Biagi, La seconda guerra mondiale, vol. 5, Milano, Fabbri editori, 1989.
Gianfranco Bianchi, La Resistenza in: Storia d’Italia, vol. 8, Novara, De Agostini, 1979.
Giorgio Bocca, Storia dell’Italia partigiana, Milano, Mondadori, 1995. ISBN 88-04-40129-X
Arturo Colombo, Partiti e ideologie del movimento antifascista in: Storia d’Italia, vol. 8, Novara, De Agostini, 1979.
Frederick William Deakin, La brutale amicizia. Mussolini, Hitler e la caduta del fascismo italiano, Torino, Einaudi, 1990. ISBN 88-06-11821-8
Renzo De Felice, Mussolini l'alleato. La guerra civile, Torino, Einaudi, 1997. ISBN 88-06-14996-2
Paul Ginsborg, Storia d'Italia dal dopoguerra a oggi. Società e politica 1943-1988, Torino, Einaudi, 1989. ISBN 88-06-11879-X
Lutz Klinkhammer, L'occupazione tedesca in Italia. 1943-1945, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2007. ISBN 978-88-339-1782-5
Gianni Oliva, I vinti e i liberati: 8 settembre 1943-25 April 1945: storia di due anni, Mondadori, 1994.
Claudio Pavone, Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2006. ISBN 978-88-339-1676-7
Santo Peli, La Resistenza in Italy. Storia e critica, Torino, Einaudi, 2004. ISBN 978-88-06-16433-1
Nuto Revelli, La guerra dei poveri, Torino, Einaudi, 1993.

June 29 at Russian Federation The Day of Partisans and Underground Workers is celebrated. This memorable date was installed in honor of the heroic Soviet partisans and members of the anti-fascist underground, who resisted the Nazi invaders in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War. But not only Soviet land defended from the Nazis by partisan heroes. During the Second World War, many Soviet soldiers fought against fascism outside the Soviet Union, primarily in the countries of Eastern and Western Europe. First of all, these were Soviet prisoners of war who managed to escape from Nazi concentration camps and join the ranks of the anti-fascist underground in the countries on whose territory they were held captive.

Creation of the Resistance movement in Italy

One of the most numerous and active partisan movements against fascism unfolded during the Second World War in Italy. As a matter of fact, anti-fascist resistance in Italy began back in the 1920s, as soon as Benito Mussolini came to power and established a fascist dictatorship. Communists, socialists, anarchists, and later representatives of leftist movements in fascism (there were also those dissatisfied with Mussolini’s alliance with Hitler) took part in the resistance. However, before the outbreak of World War II, anti-fascist resistance in Italy was fragmented and relatively successfully suppressed by the fascist police and army. The situation changed with the beginning of the war. The Resistance Movement was created as a result of combining efforts separate groups, formed by representatives of the Italian political opposition, including military personnel.

It should be noted that the Italian partisan movement, after the overthrow of Mussolini and the occupation of Italy by the Nazis, received enormous support from the Italian army. Italian troops, who went over to the side of the anti-fascist government of Italy, were sent to the front against Hitler's army. Rome was defended by the Italian army divisions Granatieri and Ariete, but they were later forced to withdraw. But it was from the warehouses of the Italian army that the partisan movement received most of its income. Representatives of the Communist Party, led by Luigi Longo, held negotiations with General Giacomo Carboni, who led military intelligence Italy and at the same time commanded mechanized corps Italian army defending Rome from the advancing Nazi troops. General Carboni ordered the transfer to Luigi Longo of two trucks of weapons and ammunition intended for the deployment of the partisan movement against the Nazi occupiers. After the Italian troops defending Rome ceased resistance on September 9, 1943, and Wehrmacht and SS units entered the Italian capital, the only hope remained in the partisan movement.

On September 9, 1943, the Italian National Liberation Committee was created, which began to play the role of formal leadership of the Italian anti-fascist partisan movement. The National Liberation Committee included representatives of the communist, liberal, socialist, Christian democratic, labor democratic parties and the action party. The leadership of the committee maintained contact with the command of the armed forces of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. In Northern Italy, occupied by Nazi troops, the Committee for the Liberation of Northern Italy was created, to which the partisan formations operating in the region were subordinate. The guerrilla movement included three key armed forces. The first, the Garibaldi Brigades, was controlled by the Italian communists, the second, the Justice and Freedom organization, was under the control of the Action Party, and the third, the Matteotti Brigades, was subordinate to the leadership of the Socialist Party. In addition, a few partisan groups operated on Italian territory, staffed by monarchists, anarchists and anti-fascists without pronounced political sympathies.

On November 25, 1943, under communist control, the formation of the Garibaldi Brigades began. By April 1945, 575 Garibaldian brigades were operating in Italy, each of which consisted of approximately 40-50 partisans, united in 4-5 groups of two units of five people. Direct command of the brigades was exercised by the leaders of the Italian Communist Party, Luigi Longo and Pietro Secchia. The strength of the Garibaldi Brigades was approximately half of the total strength of the Italian partisan movement. In the period from mid-1944 to March 1945 alone, the Garibaldi brigades created by the communists accounted for at least 6.5 thousand military operations and 5.5 thousand sabotage attacks against occupation infrastructure. The total number of fighters and commanders of the Garibaldi brigades by the end of April 1945 was at least 51 thousand people, united in 23 partisan divisions. Most of the divisions of the Garibaldi Brigades were stationed in Piedmont, but partisans also operated in Liguria, Veneto, Emilia and Lombardy.

Russian "Garibaldians"

Many Soviet citizens who escaped from prisoner of war camps or found themselves in Italian territory in some other way joined the ranks of the Italian Resistance. When the German prisoner of war camps were overcrowded, a significant part of the captured soldiers and officers of the Allied forces and the Red Army were transferred to camps in Italy. The total number of prisoners of war in Italy reached 80 thousand people, of which 20 thousand people were military personnel and civilian prisoners of war from the Soviet Union. Soviet prisoners of war were placed in northern Italy - in the industrial region of Milan, Turin and Genoa. Many of them were used as labor in the construction of fortifications on the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian coasts. Those prisoners of war who were lucky enough to escape joined partisan detachments and underground organizations operating in cities and rural areas. Many Soviet soldiers, having broken into the territory active work Italian partisans joined the Garibaldi brigades. Thus, Azerbaijani Ali Baba ogly Babayev (born 1910), who was in a prisoner of war camp in Udine, escaped from captivity with the help of Italian communists and joined the Garibaldi brigades. As an officer of the Red Army, he was appointed to the position of the Chapaev battalion created as part of the brigades. Vladimir Yakovlevich Pereladov (born 1918) served as commander of an anti-tank battery in the Red Army and was captured. He tried to escape three times, but was unsuccessful. Finally, already on the territory of Italy, luck smiled on the Soviet officer. Pereladov escaped with the help of Italian communists and was transported to the province of Modena, where he joined the local partisans. As part of the Garibaldi brigades, Pereladov was appointed commander of the Russian shock battalion. Three hundred thousand lire were promised by the occupation authorities of Italy for the capture of “Captain Russo,” as local residents called Vladimir Yakovlevich. Pereladov's detachment managed to inflict colossal damage on the Nazis - destroy 350 vehicles with soldiers and cargo, blow up 121 bridges, and capture at least 4,500 soldiers and officers of the Nazi army and Italian fascist formations. It was the Russian shock battalion that was one of the first to break into the city of Montefiorino, where the famous partisan republic was created. The national hero of Italy was Fyodor Andrianovich Poletaev (1909-1945) - private guard, artilleryman. Like his other comrades - Soviet soldiers who found themselves on Italian soil, Poletaev was captured. Only in the summer of 1944, with the help of Italian communists, did he manage to escape from a camp located in the vicinity of Genoa. Having escaped from captivity, Poletaev joined Nino Franki’s battalion, which was part of the Orest brigade. Colleagues in the partisan detachment called Fedor “Poetan”. On February 2, 1945, during the battle in the Molniy Valle - Scrivia, Poletaev went on the attack and forced most of the Nazis to drop their weapons. But one of German soldiers shot at the brave partisan. Poletaev, wounded in the throat, died. After the war, he was buried in Genoa, and only in 1962 was the feat of Fyodor Andrianovich appreciated in his homeland - Poletaev was posthumously awarded high rank Hero of the Soviet Union.

The number of Soviet partisans who fought in Italy is estimated by modern historians at many thousands of people. In Tuscany alone, 1,600 Soviet citizens fought against the Nazis and local fascists, about 800 Soviet soldiers and officers fought partisans in the province of Emilia-Romagna, 700 people in Piedmont, 400 people in Liguria, 400 people in Lombardy, 700 people in Veneto. It was the large number of Soviet partisans that prompted the leadership of the Italian Resistance to begin forming “Russian” companies and battalions as part of the Garibaldi brigades, although, of course, among the Soviet partisans there were not only Russians, but also people of various nationalities of the Soviet Union. In the province of Novara, Fore Mosulishvili (1916-1944), a Soviet soldier, Georgian by nationality, accomplished his feat. Like many of his peers, at the beginning of the war he was drafted into the active army, received the rank of senior officer, and was captured in the Baltic states. In Italy he was lucky enough to escape from a prisoner of war camp. On December 3, 1944, the detachment, which included Mosulishvili, was surrounded. The Nazis blocked the partisans in the cheese factory and repeatedly asked the anti-fascists to surrender. In the end, the Germans, seeing that the partisans’ resistance was not ceasing, promised to save the partisans’ lives if the platoon commander came to them first. However, the platoon commander did not dare to go out first and then at the entrance to the cheese factory with the words “I am the commander!” Fore Mosulishvili appeared. He shouted “Long live the Soviet Union!” Long live Free Italy! and shot himself in the head (Bautdinov G. “We beat the fascists in Italy” // http://www.konkurs.senat.org/).
It is noteworthy that among the partisans who took up arms against the fascist dictatorship of Mussolini, and then against the Nazi troops that occupied Italy, there were also Russians who lived on Italian soil before the war. First of all, we are talking about white emigrants who, despite completely different political positions, found the courage to stand on the side of the communist Soviet Union against fascism.

Hero of the Soviet Union Sergeant Major Christopher Nikolaevich Mosulishvili.

Comrade Chervonny

When did it start Civil war in Russia, young Alexei Nikolaevich Fleisher (1902-1968) was a cadet - as befits a nobleman, a hereditary military man, whose father served in Russian army with the rank of lieutenant colonel. The Fleischers, of Danish origin, settled in Russian Empire and received the nobility, after which many of them served the Russian Empire in the military field for two centuries. Young cadet Alexey Fleisher, along with his other classmates, was evacuated by Wrangel troops from Crimea. So he ended up in Europe - a seventeen-year-old youth, who just yesterday was planning to devote himself to military service for the glory of the Russian state. Like many other emigrants, Alexei Fleisher had to try himself in different professions in a foreign land. Initially settling in Bulgaria, he got a job as a molder at a brick factory, worked as a miner, and then moved to Luxembourg, where he worked in a tannery. The son of a lieutenant colonel, who also had to wear officer's shoulder straps, became an ordinary European proletarian. Having moved from Luxembourg to France, Fleischer got a job as an excavator driver, then as a cable car driver, and was a driver for an Italian diplomat in Nice. Before the war, Alexey Fleisher lived in Belgrade, where he worked as a driver at the Greek diplomatic mission. In 1941, when Italian troops invaded Yugoslavia, Alexei Fleischer, as a person of Russian origin, was detained and sent into exile in Italy at the beginning of 1942. There, under police supervision, he was settled in one of the small villages, but soon managed to obtain permission to live in Rome - albeit also under the supervision of the Italian intelligence services. In October 1942, Alexey Fleisher got a job as a head waiter at the Siamese (Thailand) embassy. Thailand fought on the side of Japan in World War II, so it had a diplomatic mission in Italy, and the employees of the Siamese embassy did not arouse much suspicion among the intelligence services.

After Anglo-American troops landed on the Italian coast, the Siamese embassy was evacuated to northern Italy - to the zone of Nazi occupation. Alexey Fleisher remained to guard the empty embassy building in Rome. He turned it into the headquarters of Italian anti-fascists, where many prominent figures of the local underground visited. Through Italian underground fighters, Fleischer got in touch with Soviet prisoners of war who were in Italy. The backbone of the partisan movement was made up of fugitives from prisoner of war camps, who acted with the active support of immigrants from Russia living in Rome and other Italian cities. Alexey Fleisher, a nobleman and a White emigrant, received the military nickname “Chervonny” from the Soviet partisans. Lieutenant Alexey Kolyaskin, who took part in the Italian partisan movement, recalled that Fleischer, “honest and brave man helped his compatriots escape to freedom and supplied them with everything they needed, including weapons” (Quoted from: Prokhorov Yu. I. Cossacks for Russia // Siberian Cossack Journal (Novosibirsk). - 1996. - No. 3). Fleischer was directly assisted by other Russian emigrants who formed an entire underground group. An important role in the Russian underground was played by Prince Sergei Obolensky, who acted under the guise of the “Committee for the Protection of Russian Prisoners of War.” Prince Alexander Sumbatov arranged for Alexey Fleisher to be a head waiter at the Thai embassy. In addition to Princes Obolensky and Sumbatov, the Russian emigrant underground organization included Ilya Tolstoy, artist Alexei Isupov, mason Kuzma Zaitsev, Vera Dolgina, priests Dorofey Beschastny and Ilya Markov.

In October 1943, members of the Roman underground learned that in the vicinity of Rome, at the location of Hitler's troops, there were a significant number of Soviet prisoners of war. It was decided to expand active work to help escaped prisoners of war, which consisted of sheltering fugitives and transporting them to active partisan detachments, as well as providing food, clothing and weapons to escaped Soviet prisoners of war. In July 1943, the Germans delivered 120 Soviet prisoners of war to the outskirts of Rome, where they were first used in the construction of facilities, and then distributed among industrial enterprises and construction projects in cities nearby Rome. Seventy prisoners of war worked at the dismantling of the aircraft plant in Monterotondo, fifty people worked at the car repair plant in Bracciano. At the same time, in October 1943, the command of the Italian partisan forces operating in the Lazio region decided to organize the escape of Soviet prisoners of war held in the vicinity of Rome. The direct organization of the escape was entrusted to the Roman group of Russian emigrants under the leadership of Alexei Fleisher. On October 24, 1943, Alexey Fleisher, accompanied by two anti-fascist Italians, went to Monterotondo, from where 14 prisoners of war escaped on the same day. Among the first to flee from the camp was Lieutenant Alexei Kolyaskin, who later joined the partisans and took an active part in the armed anti-fascist struggle in Italy. In total, Fleischer's group rescued 186 Soviet soldiers and officers who were held captive in Italy. Many of them were transferred to partisan detachments.

Partisan detachments on the outskirts of Rome

In the area of Genzano and Palestrina, a Russian partisan detachment was created, staffed by escaped prisoners of war. It was commanded by Lieutenant Alexey Kolyaskin. Two Russian partisan detachments operated in the Monterotondo area. The command of both detachments was carried out by Anatoly Mikhailovich Tarasenko - an amazing person, a Siberian. Before the war, Tarasenko lived in Irkutsk region, in the Tanguy region, where he was engaged in a completely peaceful business - trade. It is unlikely that Irkutsk salesman Anatoly could even in a dream imagine his future as the commander of a partisan detachment on distant Italian soil. In the summer of 1941, Anatoly’s brother Vladimir Tarasenko died in battles near Leningrad. Anatoly went to the front, served in the artillery, and was wounded. In June 1942, Corporal Tarasenko, having received a shell shock, was captured. At first he was in a prisoner of war camp on the territory of Estonia, and in September 1943 he was transferred, along with other comrades in misfortune, to Italy. There he fled the camp, joining the partisans. Another Russian partisan detachment was formed in the area of Ottavia and Monte Mario. A separate underground “Youth Detachment” operated in Rome. It was headed by Pyotr Stepanovich Konopelko.

Like Tarasenko, Pyotr Stepanovich Konopelko was a Siberian. He was in a prisoner of war camp guarded by Italian soldiers. Together with Soviet soldiers French, Belgian and Czech soldiers who were captured were held here. Together with his comrade Anatoly Kurnosov, Konopelko tried to escape from the camp, but was caught. Kurnosov and Konopelko were placed in a Roman prison and then transported back to a prisoner of war camp. There, a certain D'Amico, a local resident who was a member of an underground anti-fascist group, got in touch with them. His wife was Russian by nationality, and D'Amico himself lived for some time in Leningrad. Soon Konopelko and Kurnosov escaped from the prisoner of war camp. They hid at Fleischer - on the territory of the former Thai embassy. Pyotr Konopelko was appointed commander of the “Youth Detachment”. Konopelko moved around Rome posing as a deaf-mute Italian Giovanni Beneditto. He supervised the transfer of escaped Soviet prisoners of war to mountainous areas - to the partisan detachments operating there, or hid the fugitives in the abandoned Thai embassy. Soon, new underground fighters appeared on the embassy territory - sisters Tamara and Lyudmila Georgievsky, Pyotr Mezheritsky, Nikolai Khvatov. The Germans took the Georgievsky sisters to work from their native Gorlovka, but the girls managed to escape and join the partisan detachment as messengers. Fleischer himself sometimes dressed in the uniform of a German officer and moved around Rome for reconnaissance purposes. He did not arouse suspicion among Nazi patrols because he spoke excellent German. Shoulder to shoulder with the Soviet underground fighters operating in Rome stood Italian patriots - professor, doctor of medicine Oscar di Fonzo, captain Adriano Tanni, doctor Loris Gasperi, cabinetmaker Luigi de Zorzi and many others wonderful people the most different ages and professions. Luigi de Zorzi was Fleischer's immediate assistant and carried out the most important assignments of the underground organization.

Professor Oscar di Fonzo organized an underground hospital for the treatment of partisans, located in the small Catholic church of San Giuseppe. Another location for the underground workers was the basement of a bar that belonged to Aldo Farabullini and his wife Idrana Montagna. In Ottavia, one of the closest suburbs of Rome, a safe house also appeared, used by the Fleischerites. She was supported by the Sabatino Leoni family. The owner’s wife, Maddalena Rufo, received the nickname “Mother Angelina.” This woman was distinguished by her enviable composure. She managed to hide the underground even when, by decision of the German commandant’s office, several Nazi officers were stationed on the second floor of the house. The underground lived on the first floor, and the Nazis lived on the second. And it is precisely the merit of the owners of the house that the paths of the inhabitants of the home did not cross and the stay of the underground workers was kept secret until their departure German officers to the next location. The peasant population of the surrounding villages provided great assistance to the Soviet underground fighters, providing the partisans with food and shelter. Eight Italians who sheltered escaped Soviet prisoners of war and later hosted underground fighters were awarded high awards after the end of World War II state award USSR - Order of the Patriotic War.

Didn't give up and didn't give up

Soviet partisans and underground fighters operating in the vicinity of Rome were doing something familiar to partisans of all countries and times - destroying manpower The enemy, attacking patrols and individual soldiers and officers, blew up communications, damaged the property and transport of the Nazis. Naturally, the Gestapo was knocked off its feet in search of unknown saboteurs who were causing serious damage to the Nazi formations stationed in the area of Rome. On suspicion of assisting the partisans, Hitler's punitive forces arrested many local residents. Among them was 19-year-old Maria Pizzi, a resident of Monterotondo. The partisans always found shelter and help in her house. Of course, this could not last long - in the end, a traitor from among the local collaborators “handed over” Maria Pizzi to the Nazis. The girl was arrested. However, even under severe torture, Maria did not report anything about the activities of the Soviet partisans. In the summer of 1944, two months after her liberation, Maria Pizzi died - she contracted tuberculosis in the dungeons of the Gestapo. The informers also handed over Mario Pinci, a resident of Palestrina who helped the Soviet partisans. At the end of March 1944, the brave anti-fascist was arrested. Along with Mario, the Germans captured his sisters and brothers. Five members of the Pinchi family were taken to a cheese factory, where they were brutally murdered along with the other six Palestinians who were arrested. The bodies of the murdered anti-fascists were put on display and hung in the central square of Palestrina for 24 hours. Lawyer Aldo Finzi, who had previously acted as part of the Roman underground, but then moved to his mansion in Palestrina, was also extradited to the Germans. In February 1944, the Germans established their headquarters in the mansion of lawyer Finzi. For the underground fighter, this was a wonderful gift, since the lawyer had the opportunity to learn almost all the action plans of the German unit, information about which he passed on to the command of the local partisan detachment. However, informers soon betrayed lawyer Finzi to the Nazi Gestapo. Aldo Finzi was arrested and brutally murdered on March 24, 1944 in the Ardeatine caves.

Often the partisans were literally on the verge of death. So, one evening, Anatoly Tarasenko himself, the commander of partisan detachments and a prominent figure in the anti-fascist movement, arrived in Monterotondo. He was supposed to meet with Francesco de Zuccori, the secretary of the local organization of the Italian Communist Party. Tarasenko spent the night in the house of local resident Domenico de Battisti, but when he was getting ready to leave in the morning, he discovered that a German army unit had camped near the house. Amelia de Battisti, the wife of the owner of the house, quickly helped Tarasenko change into her husband’s clothes, after which she gave her three-year-old son in her arms. Under the guise of an Italian, the owner of the house, Tarasenko went out into the yard. The child kept repeating “dad” in Italian, which convinced the Nazis that he was the master of the house and the father of the family. Thus, the partisan commander managed to avoid death and escape from the territory occupied by Nazi soldiers.

However, fate was not always so favorable to the Soviet partisans. So, on the night of January 28-29, 1944, Soviet partisans arrived in Palestrina, among whom were Vasily Skorokhodov (pictured), Nikolai Demyashchenko and Anatoly Kurepin. They were met by local Italian anti-fascists - communists Enrico Gianneti, Francesco Zbardella, Lucio and Ignazio Lena. Soviet partisans were placed in one of the houses, equipped with machine guns and hand grenades. The partisans were tasked with controlling the Galicano-Poli highway. In Palestrina, the Soviet partisans managed to live for more than a month before a clash with the Nazis occurred. On the morning of March 9, 1944, Vasily Skorokhodov, Anatoly Kurepin and Nikolai Demyashchenko were walking along the road to Galicano. Their movement was covered from behind by Pyotr Ilyinykh and Alexander Skorokhodov. Near the village of Fontanaone, the partisans tried to stop a fascist patrol to check documents. Vasily Skorokhodov opened fire with a pistol, killing the fascist officer and two other patrolmen. However, other fascists who returned fire managed to mortally wound Vasily Skorokhodov and Nikolai Demyashchenko. Anatoly Kurepin was killed, and Pyotr Ilyinykh and Alexander Skorokhodov, firing back, were able to escape. However, comrades were already rushing to help the partisans. In a shootout they managed to recapture the bodies of three from the Nazis fallen heroes and get them out of the way. 41-year-old Vasily Skorokhodov, 37-year-old Nikolai Demyashchenko and 24-year-old Anatoly Kurepin have found peace forever on Italian soil - their graves are still located in a small cemetery in the city of Palestrina, 38 kilometers from the Italian capital.

Murder in the Ardeatine Caves

The spring of 1944 was accompanied by very persistent attempts by the Nazi occupiers to deal with the partisan movement in the vicinity of the Italian capital. On March 23, 1944, in the afternoon, a unit of the 11th company of the 3rd battalion of the SS police regiment "Bozen", stationed in Rome, moved along Razella Street. Suddenly there was an explosion of terrible force. As a result of the partisan action, the anti-fascists managed to kill thirty-three Nazis and 67 policemen were wounded. The attack was the work of guerrillas from the Patriotic Fighting Group, led by Rosario Bentivegna. The daring attack of the partisans on the German unit was reported to Berlin - to Adolf Hitler himself. The enraged Fuhrer ordered the most brutal methods to take revenge on the partisans and carry out actions to intimidate the local population. The German command received a terrible order - to blow up all residential areas in the area of Razella Street, and for every German killed, shoot twenty Italians. Even to the experienced Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, who commanded Hitler’s troops in Italy, Adolf Hitler’s order seemed excessively cruel. Kesselring did not blow up residential areas, and for each dead SS man he decided to shoot only ten Italians. The direct executor of the order to shoot the Italians was SS Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler, the head of the Rome Gestapo, who was assisted by the Rome police chief Pietro Caruso. In the shortest possible time, a list of 280 people was formed. It included prisoners of the Roman prison who were serving long sentences, as well as those arrested for subversive activities.

However, it was necessary to recruit 50 more people - so that for each of the 33 killed German policemen there would be ten Italians. Therefore, Kappler also arrested ordinary residents of the Italian capital. As noted modern historians, captured by the Gestapo and doomed to death, the inhabitants of Rome represented a real social cross-section of the entire Italian society of that time. Among them were representatives of aristocratic families, and proletarians, and intellectuals - philosophers, doctors, lawyers, and inhabitants of the Jewish quarters of Rome. The age of those arrested was also very different - from 14 to 74 years. All those arrested were placed in the prison on Via Tasso, which was run by the Nazis. Meanwhile, the command of the Italian Resistance learned about the plans for the impending terrible massacre. It was decided to prepare an attack on the prison and forcefully release all those arrested. However, when the officers of the British and American headquarters, who were in contact with the leadership of the National Liberation Committee, learned about the plan, they opposed it as overly harsh. According to the Americans and the British, the attack on the prison could have caused even more brutal reprisals from the Nazis. As a result, the release of prisoners from the Tasso Street prison was thwarted. The Nazis took 335 people to the Ardeatine caves. Those arrested were divided into groups of five people each, after which they were forced to kneel with their hands tied behind their backs and shot. Then the corpses of the patriots were dumped in the Ardeatine caves, after which the Nazis blew up the caves with sabers.

Only in May 1944 did the relatives of the victims, secretly making their way to the caves, bring fresh flowers there. But only after the liberation of the Italian capital on June 4, 1944, the caves were cleared. The corpses of the heroes of the Italian Resistance were identified and then buried with honors. Among the anti-fascists who died in the Ardeatine caves was a Soviet man, buried under the name “Alessio Kulishkin” - this is how the Italian partisans called Alexei Kubyshkin, a young twenty-three-year-old guy - a native of the small Ural town of Berezovsky. However, in fact, it was not Kubyshkin who died in the Ardeatine caves, but an unknown Soviet partisan. Alexei Kubyshkin and his comrade Nikolai Ostapenko, with the help of an Italian prison guard who sympathized with the anti-fascists, Angelo Sperry, were transferred to a construction detachment and soon escaped from prison. After the war, Alexey Kubyshkin returned to his native Urals.
The chief of the Roman police, Pietro Caruso, who directly organized the murder of arrested anti-fascists in the Ardeatine caves, was sentenced to death after the war. At the same time, the guards barely managed to recapture the police from the crowd of indignant Romans who were eager to lynch the punisher and drown him in the Tiber. Herbert Kappler, who led the Roman Gestapo, was arrested after the war and sentenced to life imprisonment by an Italian tribunal. In 1975, 68-year-old Kappler, held in an Italian prison, was diagnosed with cancer. From that time on, his detention regime was significantly eased, in particular, his wife was given unhindered access to prison. In August 1977, his wife took Kappler from prison in a suitcase (the ex-Gestapo man, dying of cancer, then weighed 47 kilograms). A few months later, in February 1978, Kappler died. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring was luckier. In 1947 he was sentenced by an English tribunal to death penalty, but later the punishment was replaced by life imprisonment, and in 1952 the field marshal was released due to health reasons. He died only in 1960, at the age of 74, until his death remaining a staunch opponent of the Soviet Union and adhering to the idea of the need for a new " crusade"The West against the Soviet state. The last participant in the execution in the Ardeatine caves, Erich Priebke, was already extradited to Italy in our time and died at the age of a hundred in 2013, while under house arrest. Until the mid-1990s. Erich Priebke, like many other Nazi war criminals, hid in Latin America- on the territory of Argentina.

The long-awaited liberation of Italy

At the beginning of the summer of 1944, the activity of Soviet partisans in the vicinity of Rome intensified. The leadership of the Italian Resistance instructed Alexei Fleischer to create a united force of Soviet partisans, which was formed on the basis of the detachments of Kolyaskin and Tarasenko. The bulk of the Soviet partisans concentrated in the Monterotondo area, where on June 6, 1944 they entered into battle with Nazi units retreating from Monterotondo. The partisans attacked a column of German vehicles with machine-gun fire. Two tanks were disabled, more than a hundred German troops were killed and 250 captured. The city of Monterotondo was liberated by a detachment of Soviet partisans who hoisted the tricolor Italian flag over the city government building. After the liberation of Monterotondo, the partisans returned to Rome. At a meeting of the detachments, it was decided to make a red combat banner that would demonstrate the national and ideological affiliation of the brave warriors. However, in warring Rome there was no material for the red banner.

Therefore, resourceful partisans used to make a banner national flag Thailand. The white elephant was removed from the red cloth of the Siamese flag, and a hammer and sickle and a star were sewn in its place. It was this red banner of “Thai origin” that was one of the first to soar over the liberated Italian capital. After the liberation of Rome, many Soviet partisans continued to fight in other regions of Italy.

When representatives arrived in Rome Soviet government, Alexey Nikolaevich Fleisher handed over to them 180 Soviet citizens released from captivity. Most of the former prisoners of war, having returned to the Soviet Union, asked to join the active army and continued for another year to defeat the Nazis already on the territory Eastern Europe. Alexey Nikolaevich Fleisher himself returned to the Soviet Union after the war and settled in Tashkent. He worked as a cartographer, then retired - in general, he led a very ordinary lifestyle Soviet man, in which nothing reminded us of a glorious military past and an interesting but complex biography.

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