Rome commemorates the 67th anniversay of the Fosse Ardeatine massacre on 24 March, in which 335 people were killed by the then occupying nazi forces on 24 March 1944. The mass killing was in retaliaton to a partisan attack on a column of marching German policemen the day before on Via Rasella near Piazza Barberini in central Rome, which resulted in the deaths of 33 Germans.

The Nazis decided that ten Italians should be executed for each German, an order soon authorised by Hitler who stipulated that it be carried out within 24 hours. Taken from the nazi prisons on Via Tasso and Via Regina Coeli, with some picked from the capital