Wikipedia:WikiProject Stolpersteine/Stolpersteine in Marche, Abruzzo and Apulia

The Stolpersteine in Marche, Abruzzo and Apulia lists the Stolpersteine in the three Italian regions Marche, Abruzzo and Apulia, all adjacent to the Adriatic Sea. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.

Generally, the stumbling blocks are posed in front of the building where the victims had their last self chosen residence. The name of the Stolpersteine in Italian is: pietre d'inciampo. The first Stolperstein in Abruzzo was posed in L'Aquila in January of 2012. It is dedicated to Giulio della Pergola who was the only Jewish victim of the city. The first and only one in Apulia is dedicated to Maggiore Antonio Ayroldi, it was collocated in Corso Cavour of Ostuni in January of 2016.

Nazi bloodshed
The short period of Nazi Germany ruling Italy from September 1943 to April 1945 left major traces of blood and sorrow. Mussolini's Italian Social Republic, a puppet regime under German control. The major victims groups in all Italy, also in these regions, were military personal that did not adhere to the German controlled Italian Social Republic, people of Jewish origin and resistance fighters against the Nazis.


 * Many members of the Italian armed forces were disarmed by Nazi troups after the capitulation of Italy on 8 September 1943. They were arrested and deported as Italian military interns (IMI) to Germany, where they had to perform forced labor. The IMI status served to deny them the status of prisoners of war protected by the III. Geneva Convention of 1929. The Italian military internees were mostly treated even worse than the Soviet prisoners through relentless exploitation of their labor force, food deprivation and lack of medical care. Thousands of them were brought to death.
 * Shoah
 * For most resistance fighters there are monuments and plaques in place since the 1940s. Therefore there is less need to remember them with stumbling stones.

The Stolperstein for Aldo Oberdorfer is an exception as this victim lost his life already in June 1940 in Fascist Italy — not under Nazi rule.

Abruzzo
The Jews arrived in Aquila just after the foundation of the city at the end of the 13th century. They settled right in the quarter of Santa Giusta, between via Fortebraccio, via Costa Due Stelle and via Costa Pinciara. The community actively participated in the social and political life of the city, being recognized and having equal rights since an edict of King Ferdinand I of Naples was issued in 1465. The Jews from L'Aquila were active in the banking and commercial sector and were running a hotel within their quarters.

The Mussolini regime already had banished unwanted intellectuals such as Leone Ginzburg to the mountains of the Abruzzi. The scholar and writer, his wife Natalia Ginzburg, also a writer, and their three children lived in Pizzoli from 1940 to 1943. They lived in poverty and suffered from the hard winters, but they survived. This changed dramatically, when the Nazis took control of large parts of Italy after 8 September 1943. While Leone Ginzburg was kept interned and tortured by the Gestapo in Regina Coeli prison in Rome, his wife, Jewish and communist, activated her contacts with Amalia Agnelli, catholic and conservative, owner of a well-established bookstore in L'Aquila. With the help of Carlo Confalonieri, at that time archbishop of the city, the two women managed to organize shelter for many Jews escaping from the Nazi raids in Rome. The order of clergyman Confalonieri, a long-time secretary to the Pope and Vatican insider, was very precise:

"″Transfer secretly to L'Aquila all the Jews escaped from the ghetto of Rome and all who are in the monasteries or convents of Rieti.″"

This message was delivered by priests on bicycles, but only to trustworthy church officials and private families ready to take in victims of the persecution. How dangerous this endeavor was for all participants is shown by the fate of writer Leone Ginzburg, tortured to death in Rome, of priest Pietro Pappagallo, shot at the Ardeatine massacre, and of shopkeeper Giulio Della Pergola, gassed in Auschwitz.

Apulia
Apulia, the southeastern region of Italy, was spared from Nazi occupation, and therefore from the persecution and massmurder of Jews. But there were very few Jews in this region since the 15th century as they were forced to emigration by the Spanish kings and their allies. Nevertheless, Apulia lost several of it's inhabitants to Nazi crimes — mainly soldiers that refused to adhere to Mussolini's Italian Social Republic under German control, but also partisans that fought the Nazi regime in the Northern parts of Italy such as Antonio Ayroldi.

Dates of collocations
The Stolpersteine in these three regions were collocated by Gunter Demnig personally on the following dates:
 * 12 January 2012: L'Aquila (Abruzzo)
 * 10 January 2016: Ostuni (Apulia)
 * 12 January 2016: Chieti and Teramo (Abruzzo)
 * 12 January 2017: Ancona and Ostra Vetere (Marche)