Iona Ramsay and Maria Teresa Marangoni
University of Exeter

The following lecture was given by Professor Alessandro Portelli during his recent trip to Exeter to take part in a PGR workshop on oral history. He was also interviewed by Professor Kate Fisher about his experiences of doing oral history.

Alessandro Portelli has taught American Literature at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. He is the founder and president of the Circolo Gianni Bosio for the critical study of people’s cultures. He has served as advisor on historical memory to the Mayor of Rome (2005-2008). Among his books are The Order Has Been Carried Out. History, Memory and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome (2003); They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History (2011); Hard Rain. Bob Dylan, Oral Cultures and the Meaning of History (2017); and most recently, Dal rosso al nero. La svolta a destra di una città operaria (From Red to Black. The right-wing turn of a working-class town, 2022).

The Fosse Ardeatine: History and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome

On March 24, 1944, in Roma, the Nazi occupying forces executed 335 civilian victims at a place since then known as the Fosse Ardeatine, as retaliation for a partisan attack in Rome the day before. While not necessarily the worst cause of violent death in Rome during the Nazi occupation (Allied air raids killed several thousand), the massacre retains a powerful hold on historical memory and political controversy. The symbolic and historic meaning of the city of Rome, the fact that it was the only major Nazi massacre in a western metropolis, the composition of the victims as a cross section of an urban and national community, and the ongoing controversy on memory make the Fosse Ardeatine massacre one of crucial sites of contemporary ideological and political struggle in Rome and in Italy. 

Lecture

Interview