My sister read SOMEWHERE about a cemetery w/American veterans in Tuscany - - now we cannot find out about it. Can anyone help us?

It is south of Florence about 5 km west of Impruneta. It is on the local road that parallels the superstrada between Florence and Siena. It is on the west side of the road.

You would take the Firenze-Certosa exit from the A1 autostrada and go south from there.

Here's the website for that cemetery.
http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/fl.php

There is also an American War Cemetery, the Sicily-Rome Cemetery at Nettuno near Anzio

What part of Texas are you from?

Thanks for the info and . . . we live in Fort Worth!

Have aunt & uncle in Lufkin!

There is another inside the huge cemetery, teh Camposanto di Staglieno, in Genoa.

Let me add that the first time I went by the American cemetary outside Florence I was horrified at the size of it. Literally miles of graves!! Like most americans of my generation (boomer) I was under the impression that Italy was an easy win in WW2. This cemetary definitely tells a different story.

Conside ralso that the war in Italy didn't involve (on "our" side alone!) only US soldiers, but also a similar numbers of UK soldiers, soldiers from lots of other countries, like Australia, Poland, or Brazil (the Brazilian war cemetery in Italy is in Pistoia) and a huge number of Italian soldiers who, after the truce signed on September 8, fought for the Italian Kingdom alongside the Allied forces and against Mussolini and the Nazis and the Italian partisans (official fiiguers say that almost 29,000 partisans died in the war, either in action or after being deported to German lagers, and 20,000 more were permanently disabled due to wounds or torture by their German or fascist captors).

Oh my, I certainly didn't want to leave the impression that our side had the greatest or only loss. I do not want to be considered an obnoxious or ugly American and certainly am hoping to become more educated on the incredible Italian history in the short time I am able to spend in Italy.

You didn't give any such impression. But I thought that a braoder overview of the casualties could give a better gauge of the whole horror that the war was in Italy. One thing I didn't state is that over 10,000 civilians (mostly women and children) were victims of the German and Fascist rage. Several villages were ravaged just because they could have given refuge to partisans, escaped Allied POWs, or German diserters. Or just because they happened to be in an area of high presence of Partisans! And these figures do not include the (somewhat smaller number of) vicitims of Allied bombings.

quote:

Originally posted by Alice Twain:
One thing I didn't state is that over 10,000 civilians (mostly women and children) were victims of the German and Fascist rage. Several villages were ravaged just because they could have given refuge to partisans, escaped Allied POWs, or German diserters. Or just because they happened to be in an area of high presence of Partisans! And these figures do not include the (somewhat smaller number of) vicitims of Allied bombings.

When we were in Rhodes last year, we hired a taxi driver to show us around the island. And he had quite a knowledge of it's history. He mentioned that when the Italians occupied Rhodes, they built things that last, like roads, airports, etc. He said the Fascists were not interested in building, just killing people.


Louise

The fascists were exactly the same Italians that he claimed built roads and airports. It's interesting to notice that the said airports and buildings uilt by the Italian fascist occupants were not built for the island and the islanders themselves but were just supposed to serve the Italian élite. While Fascism was not, originally, against jews (actually until the second half of the 1930's many jews were amongst the supporters of the fascist regime, which in turn relied on them), ever since the start it was decidedly racist against the population of the occupied countries, be them europeans like the Greeks or africans like the Lybians and the people from Ethiopia. For example there is historical evidence that Italy was the first ever country to use poisonous gasses against civilian populations, in Eastern Africa, while concentration camps that were second only to those built by the Nazis were built in Lybia to repress the Lybians' revolt against the occupation and mass murder of civilians was a common pratice in Eastern Africa: in this case the people were called for a religious event that had to take place in an isolated area and killed, thus the bulk of the victims were women, chldren and elderly people. Please, do not fall into the "italiani brava gente" (good Italian people) trap. Historically, our hands drip blood.

quote:

When we were in Rhodes last year, we hired a taxi driver to show us around the island. And he had quite a knowledge of it's history. He mentioned that when the Italians occupied Rhodes, they built things that last, like roads, airports, etc. He said the Fascists were not interested in building, just killing people.

How old was your taxi driver? Perhaps he was too young to have understood what happened.

M

Alice and all our other Italian friends:

May I also offer apologies along with Txteacher if I gave the impression that the only casualties that "count" were american casualties. I certainly did NOT want to give that impression. I am well aware that the americans got off relatively lightly when it comes to casualties in Italy and that the brunt of them were born by italians and other nationalities.

Mostly I was shocked at my own level of ignorance. And at the historical or military mindset that considers those kinds of casualties as an "easy win".

In school during the 1950's and 60's WW2 battles in Italy were given the "once over lightly" and with the exception of the landing at Anzio and possibly some of the alps campaign were not even mentioned. I can recall the phrase "the war in Italy was easily won" from one of my text books.

As I said before, I didn't get any such impression. Regarding school, be aware that most history teachers in Italy do not even mention (assuming they know about it) that Italy was the first country ever to use poisonous gasses on civilians! So we are not exactly in the position to blame anyone of litthe historical culture.

quote:

Originally posted by txteacher:
My sister read SOMEWHERE about a cemetery w/American veterans in Tuscany - - now we cannot find out about it. Can anyone help us?

I highly reccomend seeing this cemetery for anyone passing through the area.

It is a beautiful place, but incredibly sad, not merely for the huge number of people buried there, but also because it is so lonely. Most of the cemeteries I have seen in Italy have regular visits from family members who bring flowers candles etc, giving them a "lived in" look, as though these people are still part of the community. In comparison, because it is so far from the homes of the people buried here, few families ever get the chance to visit the graves at the military cemetery. And of course over time there are fewer and fewer people left who would remember those buried here even if it weren't so far away... I would say I saw flowers on at most 5 out of the thousands of graves there. We were also the only people besides the few guards/gardeners in the entire place.