Plaque in Memory of Deportees from Piteglio to Nazi Concentration Camps

Piteglio is a historic village in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines and, due to its specific location, overlooks the Val di Lima. The National Association of Former Prisoners in Nazi Camps – Volunteers of Freedom (L’Associazione Nazionale Ex Internati nei Lager nazisti - Volontari della Libertà) placed a plaque in one of the village's main squares, dedicated to the memory of citizens who were victims of Nazi camps. 

The plaque was installed in 1993 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the start of deportations to Nazi concentration camps. The town was affected by the arrest and deportation of both civilians and military personnel. The military personnel, originally from Piteglio, were captured by the Nazis after the Armistice of 8 September 1943, on various war fronts. There were dozens of Italian Military Internees, some of whom perished in the internment camps. 

Additionally, in the nearby village of Prunetta (a former district of Piteglio when the latter was an independent municipality before merging with San Marcello Pistoiese), the Jewish sisters Vera and Gabriella De Cori were arrested on 31 January 1944. They were first held in the Florence prison, then in the Fossoli internment camp in Emilia-Romagna, and finally deported to Auschwitz on 22 February. Four days later, they died in the gas chambers of the camp upon arrival. 

Piazza Fratelli Guermani , the square where the plaque commemorating the deported to Nazi camps is located, is also dedicated to the Guermani brothers. These were two young men killed by the Nazis in September 1944 - a small shrine recalls their story at the place of their killing, outside the inhabited centre of Piteglio.