Anatomy of a Massacre

On 12 August 1944, a unit of the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division arrived in the village of Sant'Anna, hidden high in the olive groves and chestnut woods of the Tuscan mountains. Seeking reprisal, the SS killed 560 of the villagers, eighty of whom were under 16, one a 3-week-old baby. Survivors of the massacre, all young children at the time, have since spearheaded a 75-year campaign to bring the killers to justice. In the process these Italians - now pensioners - have exposed an international judicial cover-up stretching across Europe, and lasting three generations. None of the SS killers responsible for the most notorious war crime in Italy's history have ever been caught, or served a day in prison. Ten were sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia by Italian courts as Germany refused to extradite them. From Tuscany to Rome and to the modern-day streets of Hamburg and the government ministries of Bonn, The Olive Trees Screamed Murder tells the comprehensive story of the massacre at Sant'Anna di Stazzema, and the 75-year international failure to bring the killers to justice.