GORLA (Milan) – In Italy, the narrative of the Second World War has always been almost exclusively focused on the deeds of the Resistance and the horrendous massacres perpetrated by the Nazi-Fascists against the civilian population. But there were other massacres of civilians in those same dramatic years. Other massacres, but not by Nazi-fascists: by Americans. 

The “allies”, in fact, proceeding with their Italian advance to free the country from the Nazist occupation, dropped bombs and they did not always hit “strategic objectives”. Like October 20, 1944, eighty years ago: that day, American bombs also landed in the Milanese neighborhood of Gorla, in particular on an elementary school, killing 184 children, 14 teachers, 4 janitors, the school director and an assistant healthcare. A horrendous massacre which has always been talked about too little until today, when the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, went in person to Gorla – first Head of State to do so in eighty years – to participate in the commemoration of the victims of the massacre: he laid a wreath of flowers (in the photo above, from www.quirinale.it)  and stopped in contemplation in the crypt (in the photo below, from www.quirinale.it) under the monument that remembers the 184 children, defining that massacre “a senseless, unimaginable, immense, unforgettable tragedy for anyone, not just for you, because pain is not forgotten”, said Mattarella addressing the families of the victims and the survivors of the massacre.

“We were good at keeping the memory alive, Mr President”, one of the survivors of the massacre told him: Graziella Ghisalberti, almost 88 years old, 80 of which dedicated to ensure that what happened on that October morning was not forgotten. “Yes, you were really good” the President replied, holding her hand (in the photo below, from www.quirinale.it).

While they were talking, in the building in front of the monument someone displayed a Palestinian flag (as seen in a video published by Corriere della Sera). Perhaps to remember that bombs are still dropped on schools and children around the world today.

October 20, 1944, 11.29 am: eighty tons of explosives

dropped on the defenseless population by US bombers

GORLA (Milan) – 20 October 1944, 7.58 am: the American bombers of the 451st Bomb Group take off from the runway of Castelluccio dei Sauri airport, near Foggia, to reach the “strategic objectives” of the day, namely the factories Breda, Alfa Romeo and Isotta Fraschini in the province of Milan. The attack is divided into two successive waves: the action of the first wave is unsuccessful due to a technical problem and the bombs, fortunately, end up in the open countryside without causing casualties; the second wave, probably due to the incorrect transcription/interpretation of the coordinates in the code, once reached the initial point above Milan, veers to the right instead of to the left and when the error is detected it is too late to change direction: but the bombers However, the Americans decided to immediately “get rid” of the load, dropping their 342 500-pound bombs on the towns of Gorla and Precotto, instead of during the return journey on the Cremona countryside or in the Adriatic Sea.

It is 11.29am on 20 October 1944 and the inhabitants of the two Milanese neighborhoods are hit by almost 80 tons of explosives, most of which reach the Gorla neighborhood: one of the bombs hits the stairwell of the “Francesco Crispi” elementary school , just as children and school staff are going down to reach the building’s underground shelter, having heard the alarm go off. 184 children, 14 teachers, 4 janitors, the school director and a health assistant die. In the city of Milan, on that October 20th, there were 614 victims, as well as several hundred injured.

From that moment, for the people of Gorla the school site becomes a place of memory, thanks to a group of parents who did not give up on the idea of ​​the Municipality of Milan to sell that land and managed, within a few years, to to have the monument dedicated to the “Little Martyrs of Gorla” erected in that place, created by the sculptor Remo Brioschi and inaugurated in 1952.

The square where the school was located, Piazza Redipuglia, became Piazza dei Piccoli Martiri and in the crypt of the monument, in the second half of the 1950s, the bones of the young victims were transferred, together with those of their teachers. In the crypt, only one inscription: “AND I TOLD YOU TO LOVE EACH OTHER AS BROTHERS”.

The new elementary school rebuilt in Gorla is also dedicated to the Little Martyrs of Gorla, while another has been given the name of the destroyed school, “Francesco Crispi”.

In 2019, exactly one week after the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the massacre, the American consult in Milan, Elizabeth Lee Martinez, sent a letter to the mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, with condolences to the families of the victims of the Gorla massacre. 75 years later.