April 18



ITALY:

Tiny Town Lost in Tides of History

SANT'ANNA DI STAZZEMA, Italy


This Tuscan village is nearly deserted, but a few survivors sometimes
return: to visit the memorial, to gaze on hills once overrun by the Nazi
SS, to clutch a handful of soil that, even now, is said to be mixed with
the ashes of 560 people the Nazis rounded up, shot and then set afire in
a few hours in midsummer 1944.

For years, the massacre stood as a symbol of a certain Italian ambivalence
toward World War II. The victims women, children, the elderly were
honored, but demands for justice were brushed aside. The nation was moving
on.

Yet now, military prosecutors are reopening this grim chapter by charging
at least seven former SS officers with taking part in the killings. Italy
is not only delving into what happened in this hardscrabble community, it
is also learning how officials covered up inquiries into events of that
day.

"We hope finally that there will be justice," said a survivor, Mauro
Pieri, 72, speaking in the square in front of the modest village church.

Mr. Pieri motioned. Over there was the house into which he and 30 others
were herded by troops. Only four survived, cowering under bullet-riddled
bodies. Here, in the square, troopers shot more than 100 villagers before
using the church pews for a bonfire to dispose of the bodies.

"The thing that is still in my mind is the odor of the burning flesh,"
said another survivor, Enio Mancini, 67, caretaker of the memorial.

The massacre, on Aug. 12, 1944, occurred after Mussolini had been deposed,
and Italian partisans were attacking retreating German troops. The 16th
Division of the SS for Schutzstaffel, the Nazi special police units was
evacuating towns to deny aid to the partisans. Learning that the SS was
approaching Sant'Anna, which had been flooded with refugees, some men
fled, thinking the women and children were not in danger.

Most of the SS members involved are dead, but Italian prosecutors located
at least seven suspects in Germany. The trial of the first three Alfred
Schoneberg, 82; Gerhard Sommer, 82, and Ludwig Sonntag, 79 is to begin on
April 20. Prosecutors expect to try the three in absentia and will seek
their extradition only if they are convicted.

The three deny any role in the massacre. Because of their ages, if found
guilty they face house arrest for life in Italy.

The official interest in Sant'Anna was revived a decade ago. Prosecutors
working on another found a cabinet full of yellowed files detailing
Italian inquires into Nazi atrocities, including the one here. The cabinet
was turned around, its drawers pressed against a wall.

The Italians had not been the only ones to examine Sant'Anna and then turn
away. The United States Army conducted an inquiry in October 1944,
including testimony from survivors and from an SS deserter. Army
investigators found that "in many of the burnt-out houses, there still
remain charred remains giving mute evidence of the massacre," according to
their report.

The lead Italian prosecutor, Marco De Paolis, said in an interview that
until the 1990's, the government seldom sought war-crimes charges against
former Nazis. "You wouldn't think that something like that could be
hidden," he said, "but everything had been blocked because of political
considerations."

He said that after the war, Italy wanted warm relations with West Germany,
and feared diplomatic repercussions from such cases. The American and
British authorities had decided to prosecute only senior Nazis, he said.
France and others did not pursue some Nazis and collaborators until recent
decades.

Historians point out one reason for such reluctance: by pursuing German
war criminals, Italians may be forced to scrutinize their own actions
under Mussolini, including their harsh treatment of Italian Jews. (Few if
any of the Sant'Anna victims were Jewish.)

This ambivalence has not entirely ebbed, and it helps explain why it has
taken a decade for the prosecutions to come to trial.

With the case, the inevitable questions arise for Italy, similar to those
that have long burdened countries from Germany to South Africa: What
should the nation seek, reconciliation or retribution? What good can come
from prosecutions so many years after the crimes?

Mr. De Paolis has a ready answer. He brought the case, he said, because he
had no choice, given the ample evidence. "The reason we are doing this is
the law," he said. He added that Parliament was also trying to make amends
by investigating why the records were covered up.

Luigi Trucco, a lawyer for Mr. Schoneberg, said Mr. Schoneberg found the
accusations deeply unfair. Mr. Trucco said Mr. Schoneberg who lives in
the Dusseldorf area and has had two strokes was not involved in the
massacre.

"There are some witnesses saying that he belonged to the SS battalion, and
he was in Tuscany at that time, but there is no proof that he was in that
village," Mr. Trucco said. "This is a very difficult trial from the
position of the defense. These cases have been in the archives for many
years for political reasons."

Mr. Sommer, another defendant, acknowledged on German television in 2002
that he was an officer of the SS division, but said, "I have an absolutely
pure conscience."

It is unclear whether Germany would extradite any of the seven, but Mr. De
Paolis said German prosecutors were conducting their own inquiry into
Sant'Anna.

The Sant'Anna survivors know there is a certain futility in the case.
After all, even if the Germans are convicted, they will have gone nearly
all their lives unpunished. Still, the trial matters to many.

"At least the wives and children of these people, they now know that they
have a criminal in their families," Mr. Pieri said. "For me, forgiveness
does not exist."

For others, it does. Enrico Pieri, 70, a distant relative who was left
orphaned by the massacre, said: "I have forgiven the Germans. I hate their
former ideology but not their people. I have gotten on with my life. I
have overcome the hate."

(source: New York Times)





USA//CALIFORNIA:

A state appellate court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a UC Berkeley
student who was trying to recover his grandmother's Pablo Picasso painting
stolen by the Nazis.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal in its ruling Thursday found that a brief
appearance of the painting "Femme En Blanc" in Los Angeles was not enough
to establish jurisdiction in California courts.

Thomas Bennigson had sued after the painting's current owner, Marilynn
Alsdorf of Chicago put it up for sale in 2002 with Los Angeles art dealer
David Dunkl. The painting was sent back to Chicago after Alsdorf learned
of Bennigson's lawsuit.

Bennigson said his grandmother, Carlota Landsberg, had owned the painting
and sent it to a Parisian art dealer in 1939 when she fled Berlin in fear
of persecution. According to court documents, the Nazis later stole the
painting. Alsdorf bought it in 1975 for $375,000 in New York.

The appeal court said that because the looting and purchase of the
painting took place in Paris and New York, California was not the
appropriate place to litigate Bennigson's claim.

Bennigson's lawyer, E. Randol Schoenberg, has not decided whether he will
appeal to the state Supreme Court. He said that he also plans to sue in
Chicago to recover the 1922 oil painting.

Polly Towill, who represented Alsdorf, said she was pleased with the
ruling.

"We think it was the right result," she said.

(source: Associated Press)