The traditional commemoration ceremony takes place at Rome's Fosse Ardeatine mausoleum on Sunday 24 March in memory of the 335 people killed by the then occupying nazi forces 69 years ago, on 24 March 1944.

The ceremony is scheduled for 09.00 and will be conducted in the presence of the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano who will lay a wreath at the memorial site, followed by a Catholic and Jewish prayer service.

The mass killing in 1944 was in retaliation to a partisan attack on a column of marching German policemen the day before on Via Rasella, near Piazza Barberini in central Rome. 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.

For more details on the massacre, see related article.

Via Appia at Via Ardeatina 174. 08.45-16.45. Bus 218 from S. Giovanni in Laterano.