University Times

The first house to go was that of the miller, Vincenzo Martinelli. As the villagers watched from the opposite side of the Aventino River, the house shook for the briefest of instants, and then disappeared in a deafening roar of dust and smoke. Vincenzo, a prisoner of war in some distant land, did not witness the destruction of his home, but his father did. The old man buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

It was 9:30 a.m.

For the next six and a half hours, until the mid November sun slipped behind the snow- capped mountains, the Nazi SS troops went about their work. Armed with a truckload of high explosives, they brought down house after house, one every two or three minutes. Across the river, the people wept and howled, then fell into a numbed silence as a fine coat of white dust settled over everything.

By the time the SS finished their work the next day, Lettopalena was gone. The village of 1,000, founded by the Benedictine monks in 1020, survivor of countless earthquakes, a once important outpost of the papal states, birthplace of Gabriele D'Annunzio, Italy's national poet, existed only in memory. Among the ruins was the home of Guy Rossetti, vice president for Administrative Affairs at Pitt's Greensburg campus (UPG). Only six months old at the time, Rossetti has no personal memories of what happened on Nov. 19 and 20, 1943. But the UPG faculty member in Hispanic languages and literatures recently played an important role in telling the world about his hometown, the only village in Europe that was destroyed during World War II and not rebuilt on the same site, by translating "Lettopalena: A Town, A History." Rossetti's translation of Matteo Cosenza's "Lettopalena" from Italian into English is particularly important because there are now more natives of the town and their descendants living in the United States than in Italy. Most of those Lettesi, as the villagers are called, live in the Pittsburgh area, especially Turtle Creek, where as many as 250 gather annually to reminisce. "The book is really the history of a group of humans being put under incredible hardship and yet, in the end, they survive," Rossetti says. "They rebuild the town. They overcome. There were 30 some people who were lost. And these were civilians. I am also sure there were rapes going on and pillaging and all those things. Very few people want to talk about those things, though. When you ask, they shut up. So we don't know the full extent of what happened." Even though Rossetti did not write "Lettopalena," he did play a role in the idea behind the book. It began in 1992, when his friend, Agostino Terenzini, who was then mayor of Lettopalena, called to discuss producing a pamphlet on the town to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its destruction. The project quickly grew until Terenzini met Cosenza, a journalist from Naples, and convinced him that the subject was worthy of a book.

The story of how Letto-palena, a place Rossetti calls "an insignificant mountain village" that in the 1940s still was contained within its medieval walls and accessible only by mule or footpaths, ended up caught between the German and British armies for seven months started on Sept. 28, 1943. According to the book, a motorcycle with a sidecar appeared in the village at 2 o'clock that afternoon. On board were two German soldiers on a reconnaissance mission. They drove through the town, making notes on the location of houses, the church, bell tower and the bridge across the Aventino River. Then they turned and left.

Why the Germans had come to Lettopalena, which lies about a two hour-drive east of Naples, was a matter of geography and a desire to keep the Allies as far away from Germany's borders for as long as possible, according to Rossetti. To accomplish that task, General Albert Kesselring planned to use a series of delaying lines that coincided with various Apennine Mountain river valleys. "It is such a strategic area," Rossetti explains. "The town sits in such an area that you can see all the way, 60 kilometers away, to the Adriatic. So, where the hell would you put your cannons? The Germans had a perfect natural fortress. One hundred German soldiers stalled the English advance for seven months." There actually are four towns in the valley. The Germans chose Lettopalena to make their stand because it overlooks the other towns, according to Rossetti. To keep the villagers from sneaking across the lines and informing the British about the small number of troops defending the town, Kesselring issued a decree: "This town, because of the exigencies of war, must be destroyed. The residents are invited to quit the town by 12:00 p.m. on the day of Nov. 2. The residents may take along only some necessary articles of clothing and must head towards Sulmona [which was behind the German line]. Those found in town or in the surrounding mountains after this day and hour will be considered rebels and will be subjected to the treatment established by the laws of war of the German Army." Though confused and frightened, most of the villagers stayed in Lettopalena despite the order. Then, on Nov. 18, 1943, a truckload of SS entered the town and forced the residents out of their homes and across the river to the village's stables. It was from the stable area that the terrified Lettesi watched their homes being blown to bits over the next two days. Once the houses were destroyed, Rossetti says, the SS turned their attention to the stables. They drove the villagers out of the stone structures and tossed in torches that ignited the hay and burned the roofs. But even without shelter and with winter approaching, many people refused to leave and hid in the rubble.

For months, what remained of the village church served as a home to dozens of Lettesi. Others repaired the roofs of the stables, and sealed windows and doors as best they could to keep out the rain and snow. They slept on straw and struggled to find firewood and food, while the SS conducted daily searches and confiscated everything of use.

Confrontations between the Germans and Lettesi occurred frequently. Author Cosenza relates a number of such incidents: One villager was arrested for stealing a soldier's overcoat. He was locked in a coal cellar to await a firing squad. While the man was being held prisoner, a friend found the coat and returned it to the soldier. That lifted the death sentence.

Another villager jumped off a precipice to escape a group of Germans who began shooting when they saw him walking on a steep path near the playing fields. Although wounded, the man lived and returned to Lettopalena that night. Occasionally, the Lettesi even engaged in sabotage. More than a month before destroying the town, Cosenza writes, the Germans mined the bridge over the river. They did not blow it up, however, because they needed it to move troops and supplies. One of the villagers tried to sabotage the mines by pouring water from the village fountain on them. When the water failed to dampen the dynamite, some of the villagers opened the mines in the center of the bridge and replaced the explosives in them with gypsum that they concealed under a small amount of black power. The SS chose Dec. 8, 1943, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, to blow up the Lettopalena bridge, a symbol of the town. Enough of the explosives worked to knock down the two ends of the bridge, but not the center, according to Cosenza. Suspecting sabotage, the SS questioned two brothers, who were building contractors, about the problem, but never made any arrests. That bit of sabotage is still looked upon with pride by the Lettesi. Finally having had enough, the SS, on the freezing night of Jan. 21, 1944, rousted the villagers from their beds in the church and stables, and force-marched them out of Lettopalena. Before the march, Rossetti's father, a shepherd, used his knowledge of the mountains to lead his family around the German lines. Years spent by the elder Rossetti roaming the mountains with his sheep proved so useful that the family was even able to bring out its flock of 100 sheep, a donkey, a mule and five goats. By selling cheese, milk, wool and meat from the animals, the Rossettis were able to sustain themselves through the lean times.

"We didn't suffer as much as the people who stayed behind and did not go across [to the British line]," Rossetti says. "Those people suffered a helluva lot more." After the Germans retreated from the valley in early May 1944, the Lettesi began to return to their village. Many bore the scars of frostbite and wounds, both physical and mental. Rossetti's father fixed up the top floor of his stable and the family lived there for 10 years while the town was rebuilt through the Marshall Plan.

Lettopalena became the only village not to be rebuilt on its original site after the war, Rossetti says, because there was more space on the opposite side of the Aventino River where the stables originally were located.

Rossetti and his family emigrated to western Pennsylvania in 1956 to join his maternal grandparents in Sutersville on the Youghiogheny River. The UPG administrator's grandparents had been part of the great emigration from Lettopalena to the United States that occurred between 1880 and 1922, when a series of earthquakes and crop failures devastated the town. The Lettesi came to western Pennsylvania at that time to work in the coal mines. Most planned to stay only long enough to earn some money, and then return to the village to buy a farm, according to Rossetti. For a variety of reasons, though, many ended up permanently settling in the region.

Reading "Lettopalena: A Town, A History" for the first time was a very emotional experience for Rossetti. He knew what had happened to the village during the war and of his family's escape through the mountains. But, like other descendants and residents of the town, he knew only bits and pieces of the story. As soon as he read the book, he agreed with his friend Agostino, the former mayor of Lettopalena, that it had to be translated. "For three months I did nothing else," he says. "Every spare moment was spent working on that translation. I found it so fascinating. I have to tell you the truth that at times when I was reading it, tears came to my eyes…It was an incredible journey back in time and emotions." Among the things that Rossetti learned while translating the book was that he had an aunt who lost three sons and her husband in the war. He had heard about his uncle dying, but not his cousins. They perished of frostbite during the forced march by the SS. When Rossetti saw that aunt during a return visit to Lettopalena in 1994, he asked why she had never told him about his cousins dying. She told him it remained too painful to talk about.

"We talked and cried all night," Rossetti recalls. "For the first time, I was able to confront some of the things people did not want to talk about." "Lettopalena: A Town, A History" has been well received both in Italy and the United States. When Rossetti read a passage from the still unpublished work to a crowd of villagers during his 1994 visit, he was immediately mobbed by Lettesi demanding to know the source of the passage and if they could purchase a copy of the book. A recent call from his friend the former mayor reports that the book is selling well throughout the province. Rossetti himself has received calls and letters about the book, which, he believes, reads like a work of fiction, from people across the United States. A limited number of copies are available for $25 from Rossetti, 836-9903.

"It's an odyssey of the human experience," Rossetti says. "It's not just 400 or 500 souls. It's not just their history. It's the history of humanity." –Mike Sajna