Predappio (Mussolini’s birthplace) is conquered by Poles of the Second Polish Army Corps. Veterans of the Soviet Gulag, having passed through Iran, Palestine, and Egypt, they had raised the Polish flag on the ruins of the monastery at Montecassino a few months earlier. Polish commander Rudinski, commander of his country’s forces in Emilia Romagna, wrote in the visitors’ book at Mussolini’s birthplace: “Poland has not been liquidated.” On September 23, 1939, Mussolini had declared from the balcony of Piazza Venezia: “Poland is now liquidated.”
