Ateleta's History

	From the origins to the second world war
	During the war
	The reconstruction
	The emigration and the consequent demographical decrement

From the origins to the second world war

Gioacchino Murat and his wife.

Ateleta was built thanks to group leaded by Giuseppe De Thomasis, who was a very smart commissioner whose task was to share at the feuds in the Second Abruzzo Ultra, on the best part of Pescocostanzo's territory which extended up to the left bank of sangro River.
Actually, from about 1730 some peasants from Pescocostanzo spread on the territories of the ex feuds of Carceri, Roccapizzi and Asinella thanks to leases. These territories were a possession of societies of "Particulars and Holy places". The Particulars or "the dark barons", as Winspeare named them, were reunited in a "Class of landowner" and put in practice every strategy they could in order to drive away the peasant from the feud of Asinella. They were worried about the fact that the peasants could become irremovable and, in the end, they succeeded in driving them away, thanks to a judgement issued and applied with force in 1780. The peasants living in Carceri and Roccapizzi were the luckyest because in 1810 their rights were acknowleged by a sentence of a Feudal Commission (created by Giuseppe Bonaparte, Napoleone's brother) dated 20th jannuary 1810. Thanks to this sentence the peasants could keep on staying in their house and possess their personal properties. The new law was also applied on 30th june 1810 to the peasant of Asinella who could have back their properties which had been sequestrated in 1780. The Commissioner Giuseppe De Thomasis was sent to Abruzzo Ultra in 1809 with the task of sharing out the feuds and the Crown Properties among the communities of the inhabitants and the little towns. He also operated in our area dividing the feuds of Carceri, Roccapizzi and Asinella between Pescocostanzo and a new little town that he wanted to build.
The king Gioacchino Murat agreeded with the project of his Commissioner and on 5 december 1810 exempted the peasants from the payment of the landed tax for 5 years. So, he allowed them to build new houses according to a regular plan.
On 14 feruary 1811, after an alluring report written by he Commissioner De Thomasis about the situation of the division of the Crown properties in our piece of land and the works for the new church, the King issued the decree in which he declared: "The new little town built under our special protection by the peasants from Roccapizzi and Carceri of the Second Abruzzo Ultra will be called Ateleta". The meanings of the word "Ateleta" are "without any tax" and "starch-water and exempted".

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During the war

Although Ateleta is far from the most important centres, it was marked by the fury of the last war. We are in 1943: after the armistice of the 8th september, in Abruzzo was built the Gustav line on which the germans, under the leadership of the general Kesserling, formed a bridgehead from the Majella to the outlet of Pescara, being Cassino the centre for the military operations. The front covered a big region of the central Italy from the river Volturno to the river Trigno and Sangro. The german invasion weigh haevily on the inhabitants because of its requisition, rounds-up and distructions caused by mines laid where people used to live, under road and railway bridges. In our zone the Nazis formed bridgehead between Castel di Sangro, Roccaraso, Gamberale and Pizzoferrato. In a few months, till december, they killed a lot of people and stole a lot of things. They need a large territory without people living in it, mined and distroyed. That's why lots of little towns over the Sangro were distroyed. They interrupted the ways of communication because they had to blockade the VIII army of general Montgomery which was climbing up the Sangro's valley.
So, to requisition everything around them, they obliged the inhabitants to leave their properties: houses, animals, food, cowsheds and sheepfolds. People were obliged to leave secretly in the night, on foot or riding beasts loaded with few clothers in order to protect themselves from the cold weather. They crossed the rivers and the woods as if they were brigands.
Within november 1943 in Pietransieri, which is 8 kilometres far from Ateleta, lieutenant Shulemburg's nazis raged against the poor people in a brutal way because they didn't want to leave their little town. So, between the 14th november and the 20th november 18 people were killed. Then, the 1st november 110 people were shot by a group of pitiless soldier. Among them there were children, young people and adults whose only desire was to escape from the rounds-up. Ateleta didn't live this kind of experience, but it became a mired land. While people were trying to hide themselves in open lands before being evacuated in Puglia, Ateleta was distroyed. First of all some bridges of the Sangritana's railway were blown up, then the town hall, the old cemetary, the church (12th November) and, at last, a big part o the chief town were complitely distroyed. Only 9 houses didn't collapse, as if they were witnesses of the nazis' atrocities. They set fire to many houses of the centre of the little town and they seemed more like hovels than places in which people could live. Most of the ateletesi and many people living in the near towns were evacuated to Puglia, under the protection of the allied command in San Pietro Avellana there were the americans, especially canadians who, by the end of november and the first day of december, welcomed the evacuees and charged them on a lorry in order to bring them to Puglia (to Brindisi, Lecce, Otranto, Ostuni,...). There they lived in precarious flats suffering from starvation, illness up to the moment in which Italy was rid of nazis in 1945.
During summer 1944 the evacuees come back to Ateleta but they could only see the disasters that the war brought about and this kind of images keep on living in the old people's mind.

Il monumento ai caduti di guerra sito nel Parco Giochi.

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The reconstruction

The ateletesi didn't gave themselves up to despair for the situation: first of all resigned to the bad reality, they lived into caves, cowsheds and straw-ricks, but they started to work the fields because they were the only source of nourishment. Also the americans helped them with food and clothes. The Swiss gave them a church and a school built with wood were children could receive the Sacraments and the elementary education. So the ateletesi, step by step, reconstructed their destroyed town thanks also to de grants-in-aid, and, making it more modern and pleasant. in 1947 a new reconstruction plan was drown up that, until 1985 regulated the renascence of Ateleta. About in 1955 the elementary schoool and the town hall of the centre were opened again, in the hamlet new schools were built and the new church was planned. In fact, only after 12 years by the end of the war, exactly during summer 1957 Monsignor Ildefonso Rea Abate from Montecassino laid down the foundation stone and in 1959 the curch was finished by the firm Cement-Ferr from Genova and opened to religion. Such a quick construction ina such difficult period was a challenge against the time and the people's discouragement. For this work, worthy of a town, a relevant figure is Don Vittorio Rosato who was the priest of Ateleta from 1943 to 1989 and also the one who promoted and realized it. The new church wasn't built in Piazza Carolina anymore because there wasn't space enough, but it rose in a more central place. It's artistically more precious thanks to the numerous marbles and mosaics of great value, in addition to a marvellous door made of broze which was realized by Sante Ventresca from Sulmona. While the people were rebuilding new houses and new relationship among them, the Administration that followed one another at the guide of Ateleta undertook to give a new face at the new town, offering it important services that before were inexistent. The hanlets were connected to the chief town and Ateleta was linked to Roccaraso (around 1960), so all the homesteads situated in the isolated areas of the town, couldn't be considered isolated anymore. in this way, in spite of the bad things that the war had provoked like destruction and poverty, the Administrations succeded in improving the conditions of life. All this works were realized ina long time and the Administrators had to work hard, though sometimes they weren't able to take the opportunities offered by the laws in order to give suitable structures to Ateleta for a new development.

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The emigration and the consequent demographical decrement

While Ateleta was having a new birth and the result of year of work were becoming tangible, the unceasing exodus toward America started again after the one of the end of XIX century. The poverty that followed the destruction and the lack of food caused by the barrenness of the land were the principal causes of emigration. The ateletesi, like migratory birds landed beyond the ocean from were they never came back. A lot of them succeeded in finding a new job where they could have an important and relevant role; in this way they could demostrate their intelligence and abilities.
After the Second World War the european states, which had roughly been worn out by the war distructions, especially in Germany where the nazism had acked, had to rebuilt their industries: that's why foreing workmen went there. Also italian people went to Germany to give their contribute in the industrial and building reconstruction, though during the Resistance they had fought to drive the germans away from Italy. These workmen submitted to do all the most humble and hard jobs, and among them we could, and we can also nowadays, find a lot of ateletesi. So after more than 50 years by the end of the war, the emigration decimated the population of Abruzzo, and in particular the one of Ateleta. The statistics from 1811 to 1983 about resident people doesn't need any comment because it shows in a very clear way what the emigration waves have meant for your little town. Tis is clearer if compared to the quick growth that took place in the period before the First World War: in 50 years, from 1810 to 1861 our population increased of 1489 inhabitants. As we can see from the statement, the increasing went on considerably until 1911, the year in which Ateleta celebrated its first century from its foundation. From that moment the demographical decrement has been costant and inexorable up to our days.

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