The victims of the Fosse Ardeatine: Angelo Galafati, a construction worker who refused to take the fascist card

I am Francesca Galafati, daughter of the martyr of the Fosse Ardeatine, Angelo Galafati, our family consisted of seven children, five boys and two girls. There were only four of us in the family at that time, us three young children and my mother, because luckily the other older brothers weren’t there even though the Germans were looking for them.

I kept going back and forth between the houses and they were propped up with their hands up for a long time because the Germans were looking all over the neighborhood for girls called Maria… they found them and brought them there in front of that little Italian guy with the hat, and he always said no. This thing went on for a long time, then I learned that they were looking for Maria Baccante, the partisan worker, because she frequented our house. But they didn’t find her.

After a while a truck came, one of those covered with a tarpaulin, and I saw that they had brought in all the prisoners, including dad… I was there, I was trying to see him, he was in front and I saw a piece of his jacket. Then the truck drove off and disappeared.

What kind of man was dad, what do I remember about him? He was good, good and very fond of me also because I was the first girl after five sons. And many times we went out together and he stopped for a moment at the tavern. He was always so loving and affectionate and when we saw him from afar, my three-year-old younger brother and I would go towards him and he would get down on his knees, with his arms open, and pick us both up. When he came back on Saturday and had finished work and mum and I went to get him… and mum would fix everything… he was a pontarolo by trade, he put up scaffolding on construction sites, he worked every now and then but for a long time he remained unemployed because he didn’t he had wanted to take the fascist card.

After the raid on the house, it was March 13th 1944, they told us that they had taken dad to Regina Coeli and mum was going to visit him to bring him change. I used to go there sometimes too, and dad asked to get him the cigarettes that were in a drawer at home… but we couldn’t find them. When we returned to the house we found all the drawers open… everything had been stolen, including the little gold from communions and baptisms and also his cigarettes…

On the day of the arrest, it also happened that while they were taking my father and the others, when they came out they saw my 14-year-old brother and started slapping him in the face, shouting «where are the weapons? Where are the weapons?” and my brother shouted that he didn’t know anything… After a few days my mother returned from Regina Coeli crying, “they took dad away”, they told her that they had sent him to work in Germany… From that moment on we never saw him again, nor we heard nothing more even though my mother had some doubts about the fact that dad was in Germany because my older brothers often spoke to each other together with Maria and when my mother approached they remained silent… Until one day my mother called me screaming and crying: «Franca! Frank! Dad is no longer here, he’s no longer here” and she had seen my brother returning on his bicycle and that he had a package in his hand and had put it in the dresser drawer. Then he went to work and my mother went to see what was in the package and she found dad’s clothes, a piece of shirt, a piece of trousers…

In short, mum found out about dad’s death when she found his clothes in the drawer… my brothers hadn’t wanted to tell her anything before, no one had the courage to tell her the truth. It was my brothers who recognized the body, and dad was found headless, and that package with the shreds of clothing had been given to my brothers by Professor Ascarelli…