Massacre Museum

The Museo dell'eccidio (Massacre Museum) in Fornelli, which was opened in 2021, thanks to its unique arrangement, which combines a 3D section with theme-related artworks, provides full homage to one of the horrific episodes that occurred during the WWII along the Gustav Line. On 4 October 1943, after an assault suffered by an inhabitant from Fornelli, troops of the 26th Panzer Division of the Werhmacht stationed at the Barbara Line rounded up the locals and deported them for hanging. The podestà Giuseppe Laurelli offered himself as a sacrifice and managed to save the lives of four of the captured civilians, eventually ending up hanged along with five others. The episode is part of the fierce 'scorched-earth' military repression strategy implemented by the German army against its former Italian ally, which Hitler wanted directly. The incident and the heroic gesture made by Podestà Laurelli, which in fact represents one of the first events of the Italian resistance against Nazi-Fascism, earned Fornelli the Bronze Medal of Civil Valour.

Thanks to an immersive and emotional tour, the museum conveys to visitors the story of the victims and the full sacrifice made by the population living in the Volturno valley during the turbulent 1943-1944 period.

A small chapel now stands near the site of the hanging, in contrada Castello, which every year becomes a meeting place to mark this barbaric and resistant event.

Another symbol of the town's historical remembrance is the wrought-iron memorial created by sculptor Antonio Castaldi. Inaugurated in 2016, the work takes the form of a stele with six holes, with a hexagonal shape representing a sarcophagus at the base, a clear reference to the emptiness left by the six victims of Nazism for the entire local community.