ABSTRACT
The collective massacre generates public memory, monuments, ceremonies; the 335 single murders generate personal memory, personal loss. Since the only thing that the victims had in common was that they were all men, the bearers of the memory afterwards were mainly women: wives, mothers - a few fathers, but it is predominantly a women's story. At the termination of the massacre, it was found that 335 persons had been shot, which exceeded the original ratio of 10:1. What makes the Fosse Ardeatine so resonant is that it happened in the country's capital. In fact, it is the only such massacre to have happened in a large metropolitan urban context, rather than a village or a rural area, in Europe. The Allied Command proposed that since the victims of the massacre were already buried, there should be a monument built on top of the burial site in commemoration.
