Sant’Anna di Stazzema Massacre

On 12 August 1944, German Waffen-SS troops entered Sant’Anna di Stazzema and surrounding settlements in Tuscany during operations against partisan activity. Soldiers and Italian Fascist collaborators gathered civilians and killed hundreds of residents and refugees, including many children.

The massacre formed part of a wider pattern of reprisals and attacks on Italian civilians during the German retreat through central and northern Italy. Homes were burned and bodies were concealed or destroyed, leaving survivors and relatives to preserve evidence and memory after the war.

Miracle at St. Anna is inspired by the massacre and places its fictional soldiers and villagers within the same Tuscan landscape of fear, resistance and betrayal.