(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 7 - Nazi troops killed 28
Resistance-linked Catholic priests and friars in the province of
Lucca in the summer of 1944, the biggest massacre of religious
in the Second World War, a new study said Wednesday.
The priests were killed for various reasons, said the study by
local historians: for sheltering in churches and convents
harmless peasants, wandering soldiers, Jews, people refusing to
be enrolled in the Nazi puppet Republic of Salò forces,
partisans, and even ex fascists.
The murders were carried out by an SS Panzer division that was
also guilty of the second worst Nazi atrocity in WWII, in the
Tuscan village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema, when 560 unarmed people
including 130 children were murdered.
photo: children playing a few days before Stazzema massacre
(ANSA).
Nazis killed 28 priests at Lucca in 1944
SS troops who killed 560 at Stazzema also murdered religious