MEMORIES OF NAZI-FASCIST MASSACRES IN 2 CENTRAL ITALIAN VILLAGES

This paper analyses accounts of Nazi massacres in two rural communitie s in central Italy, with the aim of examining what memory of the event has survived fifty years later. Interview data were collected in vill ages which had the same land-tenure system (Mezzadria) until the 1960s , but which were characterized by a different system of socio-economic stratification. The hypothesis developed here is that the patterning of memory has to be related to different social, occupational and resi dential identities of the groups concerned with the events. The narrat ives of survivors are compared in order to discern the different viewp oints which produced a veritable 'divided' memory of the massacre.