Defiance Read Free Page A

deceitful scheming, their anti-Italian and anti-Christian ideas’. The message coming from the two most powerful institutions, government and Church, was clear – the killing could continue.
    Meanwhile, as far as national politics was concerned, the Cold War was gathering pace. Following the defeat of fascism, Italy had been ruled by an uneasy coalition government made up of Christian Democrats, Communists and Socialists, but it was an unelected government. The first democratic elections were scheduled for spring 1948, and the United States was anxious to ensure that Communists and Socialists did not win and bring Italy into the orbit of the Soviet Union.
    During the month following the Portella della Ginestra massacre the national coalition government that had ruled the country since 1945 collapsed. The Christian Democrat leader Alcide De Gasperi came back from a visit to America, and soon afterwards announced that Communists and Socialists were to be removed from power, leaving the Christian Democrats as the main party of government, a position they would hold for nearly fifty years.
    The leaders of the left went to ground. The Communist leader, Palmiro Togliatti, prevented a Communist MP from Sicily raising questions about the massacre in parliament. In Palermo, the Socialists and Communists thought it better to ignore the clear majority they had won in the Sicilian parliament, and allowed the Christian Democrats to form a minority administration.
    Things were much more stark in the Sicilian countryside, as many peasants were not prepared to go back to the days of fascist oppression or domination by arrogant landowners and their Mafia enforcers. So the following month the killing began again in western Sicily, but this time it was coordinated on an even greater scale.
A Long Night of Terror
    After having already suffered at Portella della Ginestra, the town of San Giuseppe Jato became a target again. Soon after dusk on the evening of 22 June a group of men opened fire on the local Communist Party branch, but luckily their three hand grenades failed to explode, and the 11 machinegun bullets that penetrated the rooms inside only managed to wound one woman. At 9.30pm on the same evening the Communist Party branch at Borgetto, just five miles away from San Giuseppe Jato, was also attacked. Three men were posted as lookouts while two other men wearing police uniforms moved forward and fired 40 bullets from a machine gun at the office, which fortunately was empty. Oddly enough, they were firing just 20 metres away from the police station.
    The most serious attack that evening took place virtually simultaneously, just a mile away, in the main street of Partinico. People were killed here because, unlike all the other Communist Party branches attacked that night, this one was still open. It was about 10pm, and the office was unlit as it was about to close. As the attackers turned the corner into the main street they came face to face with their enemies; so as not to have eyewitnesses they immediately shot to kill. The Communists scrambled inside the darkened room, but from the street outside machine-gun bursts ripped into the darkness, three grenades and two petrol bombs were thrown as well. As the attackers disappeared into the night it quickly transpired they had seriously wounded several people and murdered two.
    Five miles to the east, it was the turn of the Socialist Party branch at Monreale. At 2am, petrol was poured over the doors, but those living on the first floor quickly woke up and put the flames out.
    Two more attacks took place in towns very close to the coast. The first was at Carini, where at 10pm machine guns opened up on the Communist Party branch, but on this occasion the attackers first threw bottles of petrol against the building, and then set them alight with grenades. This assault was particularly daring, as the target was just a few metres from the local police station. The final raid of that long