Michele Del Greco

Michele was a shepherd from Anversa degli Abruzzi. He was 47 and had a large family. Since the first days after the Armistice, he aided escaped PoWs in the nearby mountains, bringing them food and clothes and, sometimes, sheltering them in his house or in the sheep pens he used for his herd. He also guided them through the mountains to cross the frontline and, in total, aided more than 100 escapees. 

All his family took part in the rescue activities. One of his daughters, Antonietta, brought her father a large amount of bread and cheese every day: «I always asked him why he needed so much food, but he never answered». 

NARA, ASC, “Maria Pizzuti”

On 22 November 1943, near Bocca Mezzana, while he was visiting some Indian former PoWs he was helping, he was approached by three men in civilian clothes, looking shabby and tattered, who introduced themselves as English soldiers. Immediately, he offered his help. However, the three were Germans who soon revealed their identity and held Michele at gunpoint. Among them, Michele recognised a ‘PoW’ he had helped previously. The German ordered him to hand over a booklet where he kept the names of the escapees he helped cross the frontlines. While he was giving it to them, Michele attempted to rip off the pages, throwing them into the campfire. The Germans managed to recover only part of it, and only 56 of the more than one hundred names were still legible.

Michele was arrested and imprisoned in the military prison in Sulmona. On 22 November, he was sentenced to death. The German Zone Command hurried to make the sentence public, distributing and posting flyers around as a warning for the population.

On 22 December 1943, the sentence was executed: Michele was killed by a firing squad. Meanwhile, the Germans stole from his house ten sheep, a cow, blankets, and clothes. Before his execution, he wrote to his family:

Carminucia [Carminuccia], we had a beautiful family to take care of, in the name of God/my destiny is that I was sentenced to death/I bless you, and you must forgive me if I sometimes scolded you. […] I will die because I was guilty of helping poor people.

After the war, his widow appealed to the Allied Commission for help for her family, as they were left without the means to survive.

My husband has been the main support of the family and therefore now I beg you now to help me in getting my two children into a college and to recommend my son in law to the Director of the “Centrale Elettrica di Anversa” to whom he already applied for a job which can be given to him only if he okayed by the Allied.

Roger Absalom noted that, since the only proof she could produce was the copy of the husband’s execution notice, it took more than two years before the Commission certified that Michele’s death had happened because of his activities as a helper.