In August of 1944, fifteen members of the Italian resistance movement were shot here in the Piazzale Loreto—in retaliation for their attacks against the Fascist regime and for Allied bombing raids—and their corpses left on display. At that time, Benito Mussolini was said to have remarked “for the blood of Piazzelle Loreto, we shall pay dearly.”
The place now looks nothing like it did on 29 April 1945 when the corpse of Mussolini himself was displayed here alongside other executed Fascists, hung upside down on meat hooks.