3. Valletta Aldriga: The Ten Martyrs of Freedom (September 19, 1943)

September 8, 1943, marked the collapse of the Fascist regime and the armistice with the Allies. Italy suddenly found itself occupied by German troops, who reacted with extreme harshness against their former “traitor” ally. Mantua, like much of Northern Italy, fell under Nazi control.

In Mantua, the Germans established a concentration camp at Gradaro, where thousands of Italian soldiers captured during the army’s disbandment were interned. Within a few weeks, over 200,000 Italian soldiers passed through this camp under inhumane conditions before being deported to Germany.

On Sunday, September 19, 1943, shortly before 4 a.m., a German truck departed from the German command in Dosso del Corso and headed to Gradaro Camp. A German officer, through an interpreter, asked for ten volunteers for an urgent task: to dig a trench for some crates of documents.

Many prisoners volunteered, tired of confinement and eager for fresh air. The Germans selected the first ten and made them board the truck, which was equipped with a heavy machine gun among the shovels and pickaxes.

The truck traveled along the Cremonese national road and, about a hundred meters from Curtatone, turned onto a private secondary road leading to Corte Aldriga, near Lago Superiore. During the journey, one prisoner, Mario Corradini, managed to throw a note from the truck: “Inform my family that I am a prisoner. Mario Corradini, Canneto sull’Oglio, via Roma n. 10.”

Upon arrival at the valley, the Italian soldiers were forced to dig a trench. Only then did they realize their fate: they were not digging for crates, but for their own graves. Testimony from a nearby hunter and some peasants who heard the gunfire helped reconstruct the horrific event.
The Germans positioned the machine gun in front of a large poplar tree (still standing today). With methodical cruelty, they tied the prisoners one by one to the tree and executed them, forcing the surviving comrades to drag each corpse into the grave before meeting the same fate themselves.
The executions lasted about an hour and a half, from dawn until around 7 a.m., with machine-gun bursts fired at regular ten-minute intervals. Terrified residents of nearby farms locked themselves indoors; some, unable to resist, approached the site and witnessed the barbaric massacre.

The Mantua Feldkommandantur justified the shooting as retaliation for a supposed attack by disbanded Italian soldiers on a German column, which allegedly caused two injuries. In reality, it was later discovered that the German injuries resulted from a fight between drunken Austrians and Germans after looting a villa.
The victims at Aldriga were innocent hostages, ordinary soldiers who had volunteered for work, unaware of their impending fate. Their execution was an act of pure terror intended to intimidate the Mantuan population.

The victims of the Valletta Aldriga massacre were:

• Luigi Binda (Rogeno, Como, Oct 28, 1923) – Saddler, 20 years old
• Mario Corradini (Canneto sull’Oglio, Mantua, Mar 17, 1924) – Carpenter, 19 years old
• Attilio Andrea Passoni (Monza, Feb 21, 1924) – Mechanic, 19 years old
• Francesco Rimoldi (Guanzate, Como, Jan 27, 1924) – Shoemaker, 19 years old
• Giuseppe Aresi (Brignano Gera d’Adda, Bergamo, Sep 10, 1912) – Mason, 31 years old
• Giuseppe Bianchi (Pandino, Cremona, Jan 2, 1916) – Laborer, 27 years old, orphan of a father fallen on the Carso in WWI
• Bruno Colombo (Lurago d’Erba, Como, Jan 24, 1916) – Laborer, 27 years old
• Mario Colombi (Salerano sul Lambro, Como, Sep 29, 1916) – Worker, 27 years old
• Angelo Alessandro Corti (Rogeno, Como, Jun 19, 1908) – Butcher’s assistant, 35 years old, veteran of the Russian front
• Luigi Pecchenini (Pagazzano, Bergamo, Feb 22, 1924) – Worker, 19 years old

After the executions, the German soldiers arranged the grave and cynically placed a rudimentary wooden cross with a pencil inscription: “× 10/19-9-1943”. A cold, bureaucratic mark, devoid of human or Christian sentiment.

The next day, the German command posted notices in the city and in the Curtatone municipality reporting the execution under martial law. Despite Nazi-Fascist threats, by the evening of the massacre, unknown hands had already placed the last summer flowers on the grave.

Even under strict prohibition, local men and women visited the mass grave nightly or at dawn. On November 26, 1943, a note was found on the tomb, now inscribed on the monument:

"I SAW THE TOMB AND THE GLORY. THEY SPEAK MORE HOLILY THAN THE LIVING, WITNESSES OF GERMAN BARBARITY. LONG LIVE THE SOLDIERS OF ITALY."

On May 10, 1945, shortly after Liberation, the National Liberation Committee ordered the exhumation of the bodies. In the presence of authorities and family members, the bodies were removed from the mass grave, still side by side in a symbolic embrace.

Identification was carried out with great care. Mario Corradini was recognized through his father’s note recalling a femur fracture suffered at age four. Others were identified using documents, letters, and personal items in their pockets: Luigi Binda had family letters; Giuseppe Bianchi a pass; Francesco Rimoldi a military tag. Particularly moving was Bruno Colombo’s collection: a wallet with sacred images and photographs, a snuffbox, a crucifix with medallion, and a small Madonna in a case — evidence of simple faith and humanity shattered by Nazi violence.

On September 19, 1947, the fourth anniversary of the massacre, the monument to the Martyrs of Aldriga was inaugurated beside the Padana Inferiore on land generously donated by Marchesa Maria Foccassati, widow of Guidi di Bagno. The monument was commissioned by the Municipality of Curtatone to honor the memory of the ten innocent soldiers.