An image of the Abbey of Montecassino after the Allied bombing of 1944
The posters of the time
With the episode of the school of Gorla, which had caused the death of 200 children, the regime of the time had the opportunity to attack the conduct held by the Americans in those months, since numerous bombings had been carried out on the civilian population from the allies in their ascent of our peninsula.
Almost all the Italian regions were touched by that kind of attacks, among the main cities involved we can remember (starting from the South) Napoli, Bari, Foggia, Campobasso, to go to the center of Italy with the destruction of the district of San Lorenzo in the Capital and, through the bombing of the Abbey of Montecassino, arriving in the North where the fleeing German troops had withdrawn.
An image of the Abbey of Montecassino after the Allied bombing of 1944 |
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Among the numerous mourning events for civilians, a couple are the ones we want to remember: the first took place on April 26, 1943, Monday of the Angel, in the City of Grosseto where some American planes decided to hit a carousel with a machine-gun fire who was giving moments of leisure to the children while they were just looking for a bit of joy in a dark period of their childhood, unaware that for 20 of them that would be the last happy moment of their existence; the second concerns the bombing that destroyed the City of Treviso on Holy Friday 1944, with about 1600 deaths. Of both the episodes you will soon find a deepening in the page "Other massacres of the era".
As mentioned at the beginning of this page, to attack the allies the fascist regime used a means of mass communication among the most popular in those years, assigning the designer Boccasile to make posters with the aim of defaming the allied troops in the eyes of people.
Here is a brief review of that material.
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The claw that sticks to the pupils became soon the "official image" of the massacre, used not only in the posters but also in the booklet "The Massacre of the Innocent" (in italian "La Strage degli Innocenti") published immediately after the fact.
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The "Liberators" are passed is the comment of the mother who holds the killed son in her arms, an image that reminds us the Statue on the Monument in the Little Martyrs square. |
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Another poster similar to the previous one, a modern "Deposition" with the mother who seems to curse the responsible of the massacre. |
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The child wounded by an explosive pen, a widespread device with others in the form of toys to hit the most defenseless, cries his died friend; in the background a four-engine plane with US signs and a burning City. |
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Churchill and Eisenhower were identified as the instigators of what happened. |
Criminal performers American aviators. |
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We conclude the series with the image that is inspired by the massacre of the carousel of Grosseto. |
