The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1947-07-31
Facts and Figures
BY
FULLER WARREN

Liz SCLiloII iIluTuCIeT Oh 900
Italians has had his death sem
tence committed to life imprison-
ment. German Field Marshal AL.
bert Kesserling and two other
German generals, who were con.
victed of responsibility for the
massacre of 335 Italians in the
Ardeatine Caves near Rome, re-
Gently had sentence of death
before firing squad cut down
to life Imprisonment by 1t. Gen.
Sir John Harding, Commander
in-Chief of the British forces in
Italy. General Harding upheld
the conviction of Killer Kesser-
ling and his two assistant killers,
General Won Mackense and Gen.
eral Maeltzer, but he decided
that death was too harsh punish
ment for the three Nazis who
had cold-bloodedly ordered 335
Italian civilians to be shot in the
back of the head on the night of
March "a, 1914. These killers al
so ordered the Ardeatine Caves,
in which the Italians were mas
sacred, dynamited so as to cover
up the evidence of one of the
cruelest killings of the entire
war
Had the three German butch
erS been shot by firing squad
as the military court ordered, it
would have been very small re-
tribution for the 335 men. women
and children they slaughtered
with fiendish cruelty. But Gener-
al Harding's heartless order,
which allows these three mass
imurderers to live, means that no
lretribution at all will be had for
one of the most brutal killings
that ever took place anywhere.
1t was my sad experience to
look at the mangled, mutilated
bodies of the 335 Italians Gener-
al Kesserling and his two assist
ant killers ordered slaughtered.
The bodies were laid out on
wooden slabs in the Ardeatine
Caves just outside Rome. The
heads had been severed from
some of the bodies, but those that
remained bore bullet holes at the
base of the skull. Attendants at
the mass morgue said the doomed
Italians were lined UP in the
cave on the night of March "a,
1914. and German soldiers pass
ed to the rear of the line and
placed pistol to the back of
their heads and fired.
Relatives of the maSSacred TIA
lians had brought pictures, keep
sakes, mementoes and personal
belongings of the dead to the
cave and placed them beside the
bodies. The pictures showed that
the victims of General KeSserling
and his killers had been men,
women and children. A picture of
"a 14-year old boy was placed be-
side one of the bodies. Many
of the pictures bore tender and
,sorroWful messages from the
families of the dead Italians.
A priest who lived near the
Ardeatine Caves said that he
lheard hideous screams and the
firing of pistols from about 8
o'clock on the night of the mass
acre until about daybreak the
following morning. He was close
enough, he said, to actually hear
some of the Italians beg the Ger
man killers to spare their lives.
The priest said he supposed that
the massacre lasted nearly all
night, many of the victims were
forced to watch their fellow cit
liens shot over a period of hours,
knowing all the while that their
time would soon come.
The dynamiting of the cave
after the massacre mutilated
many of the bodies beyond iden-
LITIGATION. The grief-stricken fam
lilies of the victims still came to
the caves and searched for their
missing dead. One of the search
ers was young Italian ex-sol-
der who had come to the Arde-
atlne Caves to try to find his
sisters husband. He said that his
brother-in-law, the father of two
small children, had been held in
Rome Jail on some trumped-up
political charge on the night of
March "a, 1914; that the German
generals had sent down an order
to the Jail for 335 Italians to be
taken out and shot; that all the
prisoners in the Jail were lined
up and every third one selected
until a total of 335 was had: and
that his brother-in-law happen
ed to be one of the victims of
the selection. He said the small
children of his brother-in-law
and sister were told that their
father was away in the war
and tn at they still were
hoping he would soon come
home.
Having seen the bodies of the
people massacred by General
1 keSSerlin9'S order opd bo,,;no