Evening star., 1943-10-25
81 Civilians Executed
lin New Nazi Atrocitv
Revealed al Be||ona
BY JOHN LARDNER.

ARMY ADVANCED FORCES IN
ITALY, Oct. % (By Wireless to
NANA) Delayed British troops
were pushing the German forces
back off high ground so rugged
that mules could not scale it,
and food and supplies had to be
carried by hand from the end of
the mule range to the forward SOL
diers. For awhile we watched the
Allied artillery sling it's shells up
among the topmost enemy nests
while our infantry, clinging to the
mountain rocks waited its chance
to close in for the kill. Then we
headed south again toward the Vol
turno River, and on our way home
found the Germans had left in their |
wake another feat of civilian BUTCH
! cry, as polished and thorough as
their massacre of Caiazzo on Octo-
! ber Is.
We came upon Caiazzo when it
was fresh and saw first-hand evil
dence of what was done. The job |
we found today at Bellona dates
back to october 7, but the sad. foul
odor now growing familiar in
wasted Italian towns north of
Naples, still haunted the steep walls
of the stone quarry into which the
Germans threw the bodies of 81
italian civilian men whom they had
executed as part of their program
of terror and "reprisal" here.
Original eyewitness reports on
Bellona were collected by a Brit
ish noncommissioned officer. Five
priests, or ecclesiastics, and the lead
ing doctor of the town were among
those shot and killed by a firing
squad in an organized vengeance
for the killing of one German soldier
and the wounding of another who
attempted to abduct two young girls.
Women and Children Slain.
The massacre of Caiazzo special
lied in women and small children.
The fact that only men were mur-
dered in Bellona seems to indicate
that the program of terror in these
parts is not stereotyped. 1t is true
that the Bellona atrocity, though
discovered later, was carried out six
days earlier than that at Caiazzo.
Three British enlisted men were
standing at wooden rail over
looking the depths of the quarry
when we came to this informal
charnel house this afternoon. The
local Italian people have been trying
from time to time to eXhume the
bodies of their relatives and the
priests from the rubble rock and
dirt which the Germans, by means
of an explosive charge, used to
carpet the floor of the quarry and
bury the dead.
They dug out one man just now,"
1 one of the British soldiers told me-
But he was far gone. He broke
/ in two"
/ The soldier walked away quickly
with us when We left, glad of an
excuse to leave. What they said
among themselves struck me be-
cause I have begun to hear it quite
lot lately from troops on this part
of the front.
Forced to Believe.
Il have to believe it now" one of
them said.
Il didn't believe it myself before"
said one Of the others. Il couldn't.
It's not natural"
For those who have never been
there stories of German atrocities
in Poland, Russia. Czechoslovakia, |
Yugoslavia and elsewhere seemed
lurid, far away and without reality |
in spite of photographs and docu-
mentation. Now We, troops and re-
porters, are seeing the same thing
for ourselves-things so completely
the same that the whole pattern
OF German terrorism over the world
comes alive and convicts itself of
reality. Not detail is missing here.
Even when you know it, you must
shake yourself to feel and grasp it.
The story of Bellona is simple
and logic enough once you accept
the terms of this terror. Bellona
is a grimy. terraced hill village some
miles north of Capua and 8 miles
west of Caiazzo. 1t lay in the path
of British units of the American
5th Army, whom the Germans have
resisted most numerously and stub
bornly, and shellfire has choked its
streets with fragments of broken
stone and masonry.
Entered Italian House.
The Germans yielded it up and
climbed further into the hills just
about a week ago. About a week
before that, as the evidence unani-
mously certifies, three German SOL
diers entered the house of a re-
spectacle family on Via Della Wit
toria and asked two girls to come
out with them. The girls and the
family resisted. The Germans
pulled revolvers and started firing.
A melee followed in which one
armed italian neighbor shot one of
the Germans dead and another
threw grenade which wounded
another of the Nazis
This happened on October 6. On
October 7, 81 civilian men-a
number possibly arbitrary and pos
sibly based on some population
formula-were selected at a little
chapel, called the Congrega di Carta,