Happy Valley

 By Marco Tarantino

On the Vescini Mountains, at the extreme south of Latium, there is the precise place where the Gustav Line was broken through.

Vallaurea Piccola (literally "minor golden valley") was ironically nicknamed by English soldiers "The Happy Valley": here, in early February 1944. the battle raged between the English and the Germans.

The place is marvellous, nature has by now wrapped everything in its hug, but every time I go there I feel a sense of heaviness stemming from the modified genius loci of the place, now speaking about sorrow, deprivation and death, just where daisies and crocuses blossom in spring.

... We should never give anything for granted.

Marco Tarantino

Author

On the threshing floor in the third photo, elderly tell there was a pile of thrown corpses after the battle, altogether, no matter their nationality or uniform.

Then, everybody came to pick their men up.