San Giovanni in Monte prison in Bologna

During the Nazi occupation, the San Giovanni in Monte prison in Bologna became a key center for repression and control by German and Fascist authorities. Run primarily by the local SS command (Aussenkommando Bologna), the prison housed thousands of prisoners, including partisans, anti-fascists, striking workers, draft dodgers, former military personnel and rounded-up civilians. Allied and Russian prisoners of war, former Yugoslav internees and Jews destined for extermination were also held there.

San Giovanni in Monte was not only a place of detention, but also of brutal interrogations, executions and deportations. Many prisoners were shot at the firing range or in Piazza Nettuno, or killed in secret executions in Sabbiuno di Paderno and San Ruffillo. Hundreds of others were sent to the transit camps of Fossoli and Bolzano, from where they were deported to Nazi camps such as Mauthausen, Dachau and Ravensbrück, or destined for forced labor in the Third Reich’s war industry. Among them, nearly a hundred Jews, imprisoned for their beliefs, were transferred to Auschwitz after passing through Fossoli.

A moment of extraordinary resistance occurred on August 9, 1944, when a group of partisans from the 7th GAP organized a daring action, managing to free many male prisoners from the men’s section of the prison. In all, between 1943 and 1945, more than 7,000 people passed through San Giovanni in Monte, suffering the tragic consequences of Nazi-Fascist repression. Today this place stands as a symbol of the suffering, resistance and historical memory of that period.