©Karima Ziani
This memorial was built in honor of the 15 Italian and French partisans executed on August 12, 1944, after 2 days and 3 nights of torture.
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In mid-July 1944, a detachment of Italian partisans from Liguria set up camp under Mount Grammondo around the L'Albarea farm, some six kilometers from the village of Sospel. They were soon joined by four French volunteers from Breil, Roquebrune-Cap Martin and Sospel, hence the nickname L'Albarea Franco-Italian maquis. Denounced by a transalpine merchant from Sospel furious at having been requisitioned by envoys from the maquis, the detachment was surrounded at dawn on August 9 by German forces converging from Sospel, Breil, Ventimiglia and Menton. Two partisans were killed, two others escaped and fifteen were captured (Michele Badino, Antonio Bazzocco, Adolphe Faldella, Oreste Fanti, Armando Ferraro, Dergio Franceschi, Pietro Gavini, Bruno La Rosa, Osvaldo Lorenzi, Luigi Martini, Bruno Pistone, Albert Quadretti, Marius Rostagni, Mario Tironi and Jean Tolosano). Taken to the Salel barracks in Sospel, they were brutally tortured for two days and three nights, traumatizing the villagers with their cries of pain.
On August 12, at around 11:30 a.m., an improvised military tribunal condemned them to death, and they were executed, in groups of three, in the courtyard of the agricultural cooperative, behind the railway station, at around 3 p.m.. The cart ride to the execution site was a second traumatic experience for the villagers, as the prisoners resembled the living dead. The population took care of their bodies and carried them to the cemetery, where they were washed and placed in coffins, despite the commander's instructions to bury them in the mass grave.
Although a stele bearing the names and photos of the fifteen martyrs was erected in the cemetery in the summer of 1945, the execution site only benefited from the inauguration of a purely French plaque on August 12, 1945 (affixed to one of the pillars used to tie up several martyrs), an Italian plaque being inaugurated on August 12, 1949 (affixed to a second pillar) on the initiative of the former partisans' associations of the province of Imperia. Work undertaken on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the collective execution made it possible to define a genuine "Carré des Fusillés", with a staircase leading down from a byroad to the execution site, where a more explicit Franco-Italian plaque was added on a third pillar, and other plaques honoring the memory of the two partisans killed in action at L'Albarea, as well as a gendarme and three young villagers who disappeared without a trace at the end of August 1944.
The August 12 ceremony in Sospel is one of the most important in the department, as not only are the communes of the French martyrs represented (Breil, Roquebrune-Cap Martin, Sospel), but also delegations from the Ligurian communes (Ventimiglia, Sanremo, Imperia, Olivetta San Michele, Pigna), the National Association of Italian Partisans (Ventimiglia section) and, of course, the Mentonnais veterans' associations.
On August 12, at around 11:30 a.m., an improvised military tribunal condemned them to death, and they were executed, in groups of three, in the courtyard of the agricultural cooperative, behind the railway station, at around 3 p.m.. The cart ride to the execution site was a second traumatic experience for the villagers, as the prisoners resembled the living dead. The population took care of their bodies and carried them to the cemetery, where they were washed and placed in coffins, despite the commander's instructions to bury them in the mass grave.
Although a stele bearing the names and photos of the fifteen martyrs was erected in the cemetery in the summer of 1945, the execution site only benefited from the inauguration of a purely French plaque on August 12, 1945 (affixed to one of the pillars used to tie up several martyrs), an Italian plaque being inaugurated on August 12, 1949 (affixed to a second pillar) on the initiative of the former partisans' associations of the province of Imperia. Work undertaken on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the collective execution made it possible to define a genuine "Carré des Fusillés", with a staircase leading down from a byroad to the execution site, where a more explicit Franco-Italian plaque was added on a third pillar, and other plaques honoring the memory of the two partisans killed in action at L'Albarea, as well as a gendarme and three young villagers who disappeared without a trace at the end of August 1944.
The August 12 ceremony in Sospel is one of the most important in the department, as not only are the communes of the French martyrs represented (Breil, Roquebrune-Cap Martin, Sospel), but also delegations from the Ligurian communes (Ventimiglia, Sanremo, Imperia, Olivetta San Michele, Pigna), the National Association of Italian Partisans (Ventimiglia section) and, of course, the Mentonnais veterans' associations.
In mid-July 1944, a detachment of Italian partisans from Liguria set up camp under Mount Grammondo around the L'Albarea farm, some six kilometers from the village of Sospel. They were soon joined by four French volunteers from Breil, Roquebrune-Cap Martin and Sospel, hence the nickname L'Albarea Franco-Italian maquis. Denounced by a transalpine merchant from Sospel furious at having been requisitioned by envoys from the maquis, the detachment was surrounded at dawn on August 9 by German...
