“To the civilian victims of the 1940 - 1945 War – who died as martyrs on the devastated native land - shall their sacrifice warn to defend peace”. 110 names of the sons of Torricella Peligna are engraved into the Memorial Tower, an altar of peace, symbolically located on the highest part of the town, once the seat of the Duke Palace destroyed by the violent bombings during WWII. The ridge of the town marked a part of the Gustav Line, a military defence border set up by the Germans during their occupation in 1943 to stop the Allies. Not only the bombing wiped away the history of the settlement but also killed civilians of all ages.

The Memorial Tower was designed in 1950 by Walter Sibona and was inaugurated in 1961. It is approximately 20 meters high and the names of the victims are engraved on its stone-base. It is completely made of concrete and has the shape of a blunt pyramid with a squared base. It turns on in the night and its light pays a tribute to the innocents killed in the bombing and also in the many massacres. The cruellest are those perpetrated the night of 21 January 1944 in the hamlet Sant’Agata, where 42 children and elderly people were killed, and the one in the neighborhood “Riga”, where 11 people were slaughtered in the farmhouse “Mascitte”. By the side of the Tower there is a “Monument to peace”, a work by Guglielmo Coladonato dedicated to the victims of the massacres of Sant’Agata and Riga.

On 30 March 1976 Torricella Peligna was awarded the “Bronze Medal to the MIlitary Value” with the following motivation: “For over nine months it has proudly resisted against the arrogance of the German and fascist occupation. The citizens openly and effectively supported the constitution of the Group of Maiella Patriots and strongly and sharply refused to move out the town. The sacrifices in terms of human lives, deportations, oppression and destructions of any kind didn’t succeed to desist. Its citizens generously and effectively contributed to the partisan fight with fighters, blood and value for the freedom of their homeland”.

[Credits | Text: Ottavio Di Renzo De Laurentis | Translation: Mirella Rapa | Voice and music: Studio Qreate | Photo: Laura Di Biase]