Demonstrators gathered in Rome on Monday 29 July outside the home of Erich Priebke, a former Nazi SS officer celebrating his 100th birthday.
Priebke is considered responsible for one of the worst wartime atrocities to have taken place in Italy, the 1944 Fosse Ardeatine massacre, in which 335 Italian civilians were shot dead in a cave near Rome as retaliation for an ambush on the SS by the Italian resistance movement the previous day.
Priebke fled to Argentina after the war but was extradited to Italy and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998, although lives in his own apartment in the capital under house arrest.
There, according to the BBC, he enjoys a roof terrace, “lined with geraniums and shaded by vines,” and is permitted to come and go. With an escort, he has always been allowed to do his shopping, take walks in the park, or go out to restaurants in the evening to eat with friends.
Many have protested that Priebke’s living conditions are far too comfortable and lenient for a major war criminal.
According to Reuters news agency, there were brief scuffles on Monday as a man identified as Priebke’s grandson arrived with a bottle of champagne and demonstrators jostled him with cries of “Shame!” and “Disgrace!”
“It’s a provocation! Arriving with a bottle of champagne!” one demonstrator shouted.
Many of the demonstrators were members of Rome’s Jewish community, and some waved Israeli flags.
Yet in a country where the wartime past remains deeply divisive, tensions around the birthday of Priebke, who has never expressed remorse for his actions, were heightened by reports of posters put up nearby hailing the former Nazi officer.
“Happy Birthday Captain Priebke” read one poster signed by a group calling itself the Militant Community of Tiburtina, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.
ANPI, the national association representing former wartime resistance fighters, said its headquarters had been scrawled with swastikas and comments supporting Priebke.
Similar graffiti was seen elsewhere, Italian newspapers said.
